erroneous

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French erroneus and directly borrowed from Latin errōneus (“wandering, straying”),^[2][3][4][5] which in post-classical Latin also meant mistaken.^[4][3] The American Heritage Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Collins and Dictionary.com give only the Latin source,^[6][7][8][9] and the OED marks the French one as doubtful.^[4] The Latin adjective is formed from a noun meaning wanderer or vagabond,^{[3][6][2][10]} from errō (“to wander, stray; to err”),^{[3][6][2][10]} the source of err,^[3][2] from Proto-Indo-European *ers- (“to be in motion, wander”).^[3][6] The Latin adjective also gave modern French erroné.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of opinions or doctrines, containing errors, mistaken: about 1385, in Thomas Usk's Testament of Love,^[2] which the OED dates about 1400.^[4] Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In English the word also kept the literal Latin sense, wandering or roving, from before 1464 until 1761,^[4] and Johnson (1755) gave "wandering; unsettled" as its first sense, with a quotation in which soldiers "roam erroneous and disconsolate".^[11] From 1512 it could mean misguided, and it meant morally faulty from 1595, in Shakespeare;^[4] both are now obsolete or archaic.^[4] The Shorter Oxford notes that it formerly also meant heretical.^[5] In law, from 1495, an erroneous proceeding is one that is faulty or irregular.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1385 – containing errors, mistaken.^[2] The OED dates its first quotation, from the same text, about 1400.^[4]
• before 1464 – wandering, roving (obsolete by 1761).^[4]
• 1495 – of a legal proceeding, faulty in law.^[4]
• 1512 – misguided, straying from wisdom.^[4]
• 1595 – straying from virtue, morally faulty.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Containing or based on errors; incorrect or mistaken: The report rested on an erroneous assumption about costs.^[8][7][4][6]
2. (law) Of a legal proceeding: faulty in law; irregular.^[4]
3. (obsolete, 1464–1761) Wandering, roving.^[4][11]

Word family

• erroneously
• erroneousness
• nonerroneous

Related words

• err
• error
• errant
• erratic

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.