Etymologically
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erratic

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ɪˈɹætɪk/[1]
  • US: /ɪˈɹætɪk/, /əˈɹætɪk/[1]

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

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