errant
/ˈɛr(ə)nt
/adjective
1 formal or humorous Erring or straying from the accepted course or standards: an errant husband coming back from a night on the tiles...
- The issue is that while we are willing to accept the errant ways of noted figures, are we similarly willing to accept the errant ways of those not notable?
- Of course, this errant stupidity helped force Zapatero's hand and have him bring the troops home.
- That explains, in part, his decision last week to pardon the errant scientist.
Synonyms
offending, guilty, culpable, misbehaving, delinquent, lawless, lawbreaking, criminal, transgressing, aberrant, deviant, erring, sinning;
mischievous, badly behaved, troublesome, difficult, unmanageable, unruly, disobedient, uncontrollable, out of control
1.1Not in the right place; having moved from the correct position or course: an errant strand of hair fear of being hit by an errant bullet...
- In three years with the team, Bartrum never has had an errant snap on a punt or kick.
- Steve Nash spent part of a timeout checking on a boy who had been hit on a face with an errant pass.
- Your mind may be drawing bull's-eyes around an errant arrow.
2 [often postpositive] archaic or literary Travelling in search of adventure: that same lady errant...See also knight errant.
- No search parties are sent out for the errant travellers.
- Thus it was that five minutes later he was wandering down the hall in search of his errant best friend.
- The guardian thinks she's supposed to be cool and calm, indifferent and impartial, a door to keep out errant knights and travellers, but she's still steamed about being stuck down here.
Synonyms
travelling, wandering, itinerant, journeying, rambling, roaming, roving, drifting, floating, wayfaring, voyaging, touring;
peripatetic, unsettled, rootless, restless, on the move, on the go, on the wing;
nomadic, vagabond, vagrant, migrant, migratory, migrating, transient, displaced;
globetrotting, jet-setting
3 Zoology (Of a polychaete worm) of a predatory kind that moves about actively and is not confined to a tube or burrow.This red errant polychaete was about 7 or 8 cm long....
- Its a reproductive form of an errant polychaete worm.
Derivatives
errancy
/ nounsense 1. ...- In these series of lithographs, etchings, paintings and inkjet prints, the artist spikes these compulsive recordings of movement with humour and a certain dark errancy.
- Is this a joint project between men and women, or have men unilaterally decided to project an aura of servility, errancy, femininity and weakness?
- Over and over, the History Channel confronts the errancy of popular belief, never seeming to tire in its celebration of Fact.
errantry
/ nounsense 2. ...- Sancho is troubled when he overhears the priest say that the books of knight errantry are not true and the innkeeper saying errantry is a thing of the past.
- Waxing eloquent, he expresses how he now he fights for vengeance for the world (a kind of a bandit errantry).
- This character occasionally accompanies wizards on errantry for reasons of her own, and is always a source of good (if frequently obscure) advice.
Origin
Middle English (in sense 2): sense 1 from Latin errant- 'erring', from the verb errare; sense 2 from Old French errant 'travelling', present participle of errer, from late Latin iterare 'go on a journey', from iter 'journey'. Compare with arrant.