erratic

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English erratik,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French erratique (“wandering, vagrant”) and directly borrowed from Latin errāticus (“wandering, straying, roving”),^[4][5][6][7] from errātus, the past participle of errō (“to wander, stray, err”),^[8][3][5] with the suffix -icus.^[3] The OED takes it from Latin and compares the French word,^[9] which the Anglo-Norman Dictionary records from the second quarter of the 13th century of an illness or symptom that comes and goes.^[10] The Latin verb is also the source of err and error,^[5][4][8] and the American Heritage Dictionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *ers-.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Wandering, of the planets: Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (about 1374) speaks of the erratik sterres, the wandering stars.^[9][2][11] Barnhart dates this use to about 1385.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word first lived in special uses taken from Latin: the wandering stars (the planets), pains or diseases such as gout that move from one part of the body to another (1547), and the wild poppy, Pliny's papaver erraticum (1661–72).^[9] From 1656 it meant wandering from place to place, nomadic, a sense the OED records until 1830.^[9] In geology an erratic block is a boulder carried far from its source by glacial ice (before 1828),^[9] and the noun was used of such boulders from 1849.^[4] The common modern senses, "irregular in movement" and "irregular or eccentric in conduct", are both recorded from 1841, the latter in Isaac D'Israeli.^[9][5][4] The noun for an eccentric person is older, from Cockeram's dictionary of 1623.^[9][3]

Timeline

• c. 1374 – erratik sterres, the planets.^[9][2]
• 1547 – of pains or diseases, moving from one part of the body to another.^[9]
• 1623 – noun, an eccentric person.^[9][3]
• 1656 – wandering, nomadic (obsolete by 1830).^[9]
• before 1828 – geology, of a block of rock carried from its original site.^[9]
• 1841 – irregular in movement; irregular or eccentric in conduct or opinion.^[9][5][4]
• 1849 – noun, an erratic boulder.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Not regular or consistent; unpredictable in behaviour or performance: The team's erratic form cost it the title.^[12][3][9]
2. Having no fixed course; wandering: an erratic path across the field.^[12][3][9]
3. (geology) Carried by a glacier from its original resting place: an erratic boulder.^[3][13]
4. (medicine) Of pain or disease, moving from one part of the body to another.^[9]
5. (archaic) Having no fixed home; nomadic.^[3][9]

Noun

1. (geology) A rock that differs from those around it, having been carried there by a glacier.^[12][3][9]
2. An erratic or eccentric person.^[3][9][13]

Word family

• erratically
• erratical
• erraticism
• inerratic
• nonerratic
• unerratic

Related words

• err
• error
• erratum
• errant
• erroneous
• aberration

Usage notes

Dictionary.com lists erratic among words often confused with erotic and exotic.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
12. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House