Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Roving, especially in search of adventure: knights errant.
- adj. Straying from the proper course or standards: errant youngsters.
- adj. Wandering outside the established limits: errant lambs.
- adj. Aimless or irregular in motion: an errant afternoon breeze.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Wandering; roving; rambling: applied particularly to knights (knights errant) of the middle ages, who are represented as wandering about to seek adventures and display their heroism and generosity.
- Deviating; straying from the straight, true, or right course; erring.
- In zoology, free; not fixed; locomotory; specifically, pertaining to the Errantia; not tubicolous: as, the errant annelids.
- Notorious; manifest: in this sense now spelled only arrant. See arrant, 2.
- n. A knight errant.
- Itinerant.
Wiktionary
- adj. straying from the proper course or standard, or outside established limits
- adj. prone to making errors
- adj. proscribed utter, complete (negative); arrant
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Wandering; deviating from an appointed course, or from a direct path; roving.
- adj. Notorious; notoriously bad; downright; arrant.
- adj. (Eng. Law) Journeying; itinerant; -- formerly applied to judges who went on circuit and to bailiffs at large.
- n. obsolete One who wanders about.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. uncontrolled motion that is irregular or unpredictable
- adj. straying from the right course or from accepted standards
Etymologies
- Middle English erraunt, from Anglo-Norman, partly from Old French errer, to travel about (from Vulgar Latin *iterāre, from Latin iter, journey; see ei- in Indo-European roots) and partly from Old French errer, to err; see err. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Never shoot at anything without a clearly apparent backstop to contain errant rounds.”
“Time and again, his footwork was a mess, resulting in errant throws on his only series before he gave way to backup Kurt Warner.”
“In the same way a knight-errant is one who submits his actions to an absolute and severe moral law, so that natural law can maintain abundance on earth with absolute freedom.”
“In an interview with the BBC radio, Raila maintained that he acted within the law by suspending the two Ministers that he described as errant, and that it was the President who had flouted the law by overruling him.”
WN.com - Articles related to Gov't advised not to sell oil power plants yet
“Historically, the Forerunner John -- that famous wild man who lived on nuts and wild honey, and dressed in camel hair -- was in the habit of calling errant Jews to repentance, and a good many of them were pleased to receive his words.”
“John McCain, the angrier of the two presumptive presidential contenders, has staked out a principled position against greed and obscene profits but has gone no further to call the errant bankers and brokers to account.”
“An 'if some gent will recall the errant fancies of Black Jack to a sense of dooty, I'll onfold how I knows.”
“There was a sort of hmm, I think she may be drawing on her own life here," my mother added - although she's not, I'm pretty sure, referring to errant parrots or slovenly housekeepers.”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
“The killing of three children and their uncle Tuesday in what Israel called an errant shelling dramatically escalated the recent flare in violence.”
“- Political reforms including the right to recall errant MPs, referendums not only on voting reform for general elections but also on a democratic second chamber and a free vote in Parliament on votes at 16.”
Telegraph.co.uk: news, business, sport, the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Sunday Telegraph
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘errant’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
zealot, wistful, welter, wary, whimsical, warranted, vortex, vivisection, volatile, vitiate, viscous, visage and 787 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Cepstrums
to cepstrumize a word is to reverse its 1st 4 characters in the way that "cepstrum" was derived from "spectrum" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cepstrum...
acedy, adustion, sudation, aedility, ideality, agentive, negative, agral, argal, agrestic, ergastic, alerce and 202 more...
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RELI - words with Biblical connotations
Words in the Bible evoking biblical stories or with special spiritual meaning. Proper names have been reduced to the minimum.
ark, judgement, holy, saint, baptism, spirit, love, eternal, altar, balsam, covenant, flood and 1115 more...
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RELI - words you immediately associat...
advent, almighty, altar, anoint, apostle, archangel, ark, Balaam, baptism, baptist, baptize, begotten and 341 more...
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Vocabulary
shibboleth, verboten, jejune, ostensible, multifarious, quintessence, purportedly, tangential, vacillate, quagmire, wanton, onerous and 74 more...
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[Open] Frequently confused and misused
Words that are often used to mean something other than what they mean to lexicographers.
apprehensible, immanent, eminent, seamen, venal, venial, brassiere, brassier, brasserie, brazier, brasier, elegy and 38 more...
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DAY4_01/07/2013
miserly, frugal, prevaricate, variance, histrionic, demur, demure, beatific, perfunctory, preemptive, peremptory, indigent and 16 more...
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on the road again
nomad, itinerant, wanderer, gypsy, vagrant, ranger, floater, gadling, scatterling, landloper, wayfarer, rover and 59 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1901 more...
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magoosh1
aberration, aboveboard, abysmal, ace, affable, aghast, alacrity, ambiguous, ambivalent, ameliorate, amenable, amiable and 222 more...
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Words For Novel
viridity, effigy, paragon, congested, acrid, lilting, clandestine, plethora, accolade, sardonic, naïve, reckoning and 285 more...
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cuzican's Words
lexicon, tirade, innocuous, apathy, narcissist, subtle, agnostic, plethora, malleable, catalyst, pithy, irate and 116 more...
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Personal Vocabulary List
All my favourite words that I come across!
veritable, incongruence, rigamorole, letcherous, revolting, repulsive, reputrid, rapatious, forays, guise, placate, paradigm and 1162 more...
Tweets
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