wayfare

English edit

From Middle English weyfaren, originally in participle form weyfarand, from Old English weġfarende (“wayfaring”), equivalent to way +‎ faring. Cognate with Danish vejfarende (“wayfaring”), Swedish vägfarande, German wegfahren (“to drive away”), Icelandic vegfarandi (“wayfaring”). More at way, fare.

wayfare (uncountable)

(archaic) Travel, journeying.
- 1827 May 13, Sir Walter Scott, The Journal of Sir Walter Scott:
  What frightens and disgusts me is those fearful letters from those who have been long dead, to those who linger on their wayfare through this valley of tears.
- 1885–1888, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night […], Shammar edition, volume (please specify the volume), [London]: […] Burton Club […], →OCLC:
  Now when he had reached the King's capital wherein was Alaeddin, he alighted at one of the Kháns; and, when he had rested from the weariness of wayfare, he donned his dress and went down to wander about the streets, where he never passed a group without hearing them prate about the pavilion and its grandeur and vaunt the beauty of Alaeddin and his lovesomeness, his liberality and generosity, his fine manners and his good morals.

wayfare (third-person singular simple present wayfares, present participle wayfaring, simple past wayfore or wayfared, past participle wayfaren or wayfared)

(intransitive, archaic) To make a journey; to travel.
- 1603, Plutarch, “Laconicke Apophthegmes, or the Notable Sayings of Lacedæmonians”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Philosophie, Commonlie Called, The Morals […], London: […] Arnold Hatfield, →OCLC, page 474:
  A certain Laconian as he way-fared, came unto a place where there dwelt an old friend an hoſt of his, who the firſt day, of purpoſe avoided him, and was out of the way, becauſe he was not minded to lodge him; […]
- 1904, Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts: A Drama of the Napoleonic Wars, […], part first, London: Macmillan and Co.: New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, Act VI, scene vii, page 220:
  But know, these English take to liquid life / Right patly— […] The sea is their dry land, / And, as on cobbles you, they wayfare there.