The following sentence is from a book. The context is the main characters just
finished fighting some monsters. One character looks distracted, and when one
of the others asks her if there's something wrong, she says:

> いえね、さっきの化け物が単独。もしくは、ハグレなら問題はないのだけれど。

Since there is no kanji with ハグレ, I'm having problems trying to figure out
what they're talking about. Does anyone have an idea based on context? I
guessed maybe the word 逸れる, but I'm not sure it makes sense here. Thanks.
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2016-01-15T20:42:00.943
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2016-01-16T01:08:01.493
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meaning
Meaning of ハグレ (kanji unknown)
Possibly would be from the はぐれる(strayed-verb) made into a noun (stray - noun).
Like 群れから逸れる strayed from the pack.

So your sentence would be "yes, well, if that monster was just by itself. Or,
if it was a stray, there wouldn't be any problem, but..."
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2016-01-15T22:09:30.903
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2016-01-15T22:09:30.903
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Yes that ハグレ is from the verb はぐれる and means "lone wanderer", "stray one",
etc.

はぐれ as a noun is definitely rare and is almost never used in daily
conversations. But J-RPG fans are somewhat familiar with this word because
[はぐれメタル](http://dic.nicovideo.jp/a/%E3%81%AF%E3%81%90%E3%82%8C%E3%83%A1%E3%82%BF%E3%83%AB)
([Liquid Metal Slime](http://dragonquest.wikia.com/wiki/Liquid_metal_slime) in
English) is one of the most popular monsters in the _Dragon Quest_ franchise.
Actually I feel her use of ハグレ is a reference to this monster.

Aside from this, the only word I know which contains はぐれ is the title of [this
TV
drama](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%AF%E3%81%90%E3%82%8C%E5%88%91%E4%BA%8B%E7%B4%94%E6%83%85%E6%B4%BE).
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-01-15T22:27:26.770
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2016-01-16T01:08:01.493
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