errant

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English erraunt,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman erraunt,^[5][6][2] from Old French errant.^[7][5][8] In French this present participle belonged to errer (“to travel, wander”), earlier edrer,^[7][5][9] from Vulgar Latin *iterō (“to journey”) (for Late Latin itineror),^[7][9][10] from iter (“journey, way”),^[5][6][10] from the root of eō (“to go”), from Proto-Indo-European *ei- (“to go”);^[5][6] but it was confused, already in French, with the participle of the French verb for “to err”, from Latin errō (“to wander, stray”), the source of err.^{[7][5][10][11]} The OED takes the sense "straying" directly from the Latin participle stem errant-,^[7][12] and the Oxford Dictionary of English likewise has one sense from Latin and the other from French.^[13] The word appears earlier in the name Galf' le Bailfesmanerraunt (1335), apparently the servant of an itinerant bailiff.^[2][6] The intensive sense became the separate spelling arrant.^[5][6][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

In pawn errant, a chess pawn that has advanced from its square: about 1369, in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess.^[7][2] Barnhart dates the sense "travelling, roving" to about 1369, in Chaucer,^[6] and Etymonline to the mid-14th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the adjective was used mostly in set phrases: knight errant, a knight travelling in search of adventure, after French chevalier errant (in Sir Gawain, about 1390, and in Malory);^[2][7] bailiff errant and justice errant for officials on circuit;^[2][7] and errant Jew, the Wandering Jew, after French juif errant.^[7][2] Thief errant, in Chaucer about 1386, may first have meant a roving outlaw, but came to mean a notorious thief.^[7][2] From 1393 errant was an intensive, "thoroughgoing", a use later taken over by the spelling arrant.^[7][5] The sense "straying, going astray" is recorded from late Middle English, and "erring in opinion or conduct" from the early 17th century.^[12] From 1639 errant was used poetically of anyone roaming like a knight errant; since 1822 it has also described what is quixotic or erratic.^[7] Johnson (1755) still gave "wandering; roving; rambling" first, applied particularly to knights.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1369 – pawn errant, in chess.^[7][2]
• c. 1386 – thief errant, a robber or notorious thief.^[7][2]
• c. 1390 – knight errant, a knight in quest of adventure.^[2]
• 1393 – intensive, thoroughgoing (obsolete by 1840).^[7]
• 1397 – of a bailiff, travelling on circuit.^[2]
• before 1400 – errant Jew, the Wandering Jew.^[7][2]
• early 17th century – erring in opinion or conduct.^[12]
• 1639 – travelling, roaming in search of adventure.^[7]
• before 1643 – noun, a knight-errant.^[7]
• 1807 – verb, to travel like a knight errant.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Straying from the right course or from accepted standards; behaving wrongly: The errant teenager was grounded for a month.^[15][16][17]
2. Moving aimlessly or irregularly; wandering outside set bounds: an errant golf ball.^[16][17]
3. (archaic) Travelling, especially in search of adventure, like a knight-errant.^{[15][18][16][7]}
4. Travelling a circuit in an official capacity; itinerant.^[18][7]
5. (obsolete, 1393–1840) Thoroughgoing, out-and-out; arrant.^[18][7]

Noun

1. A person who is errant, especially a knight-errant.^[18][7][12]

Word family

• errantly
• errantry
• inerrant
• unerrant
• arrant
• knight-errant

Related words

• err
• erratic
• error
• itinerant
• itinerary
• eyre

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
17. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
18. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster