Wayfarer

Word of the Day for Saturday 8^th March 2014

Wayfarer \WEY-fair-er\, noun:

a traveller, especially on foot.

But as you passed along these horrible records, in an hour's time destined to be obliterated by the feet of thousands and thousands of wayfarers, you were not left unassailed by the clamorous petitions of the more urgent applicants for charity.
-- Herman Melville, Redburn: His First Voyage, 1849

...it is not inconceivable that, for all his sorrowful thoughts, our botanist, with his trained observation, his habit of looking at little things upon the ground, would be the one to see and pick up the coin that has fallen from some wayfarer's pocket.
-- H. G. Wells, A Modern Utopia, 1905

Wayfarer is the modern form of the Middle English weyfarere. It's been used in English since the 1400’s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com