Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Roving, especially in search of adventure.
- adjective Failing to adhere to guidelines or moral standards.
- adjective Moving from the proper course or established limits.
- adjective Aimless or irregular in motion.
- adjective Missing an intended target or recipient.
from The Century Dictionary.
- 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. - noun A knight errant.
- Itinerant.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Wandering; deviating from an appointed course, or from a direct path; roving.
- adjective Notorious; notoriously bad; downright; arrant.
- adjective (Eng. Law) Journeying; itinerant; -- formerly applied to judges who went on circuit and to bailiffs at large.
- noun obsolete One who wanders about.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
straying from theproper course orstandard , oroutside established limits - adjective
prone tomaking errors - adjective proscribed
utter ,complete (negative);arrant
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective uncontrolled motion that is irregular or unpredictable
- adjective straying from the right course or from accepted standards
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Never shoot at anything without a clearly apparent backstop to contain errant rounds.
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Never shoot at anything without a clearly apparent backstop to contain errant rounds.
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Time and again, his footwork was a mess, resulting in errant throws on his only series before he gave way to backup Kurt Warner.
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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.
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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 2010
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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 2010
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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.
Scott Cairns: Holy Theophany: The Baptism Of Jesus And The Blessing Of The Waters Scott Cairns 2011
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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.
Scott Cairns: Holy Theophany: The Baptism Of Jesus And The Blessing Of The Waters Scott Cairns 2011
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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.
Why No Outrage? 2008
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An 'if some gent will recall the errant fancies of Black Jack to a sense of dooty, I'll onfold how I knows.
Wolfville Nights Alfred Henry Lewis 1885
shanvrolijk commented on the word errant
"Ours is a privileged moment: never before has it been so easy to gain access to the errant musings, rapid-fire opinions, and random proclivity-ies of venture capitalists and others we enrich."
Source: How Silicon Valley’s Workplace Culture Produced James Damore’s Google Memo
January 22, 2018