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Errant has a split history. It comes from Anglo-French, a language in which two confusingly similar verbs with identical spellings ("errer") coexisted. One errer meant "to err" and comes from the Latin errare, meaning "to wander" or "to err." The second errer meant "to travel," and traces to the Latin iter, meaning "road" or "journey." Both "errer" homographs contributed to the development of "errant," which not surprisingly has to do with both moving about and being mistaken. A "knight-errant" travels around in search of adventures. Cowboys round up "errant calves." An "errant child" is one who misbehaves. (You might also see "arrant" occasionally - it's a word that originated as an alteration of "errant" and that usually means "extreme" or "shameless.")
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Examples of errant in a Sentence
Carter Malkasian, Foreign Affairs, 20 Sep. 2024
Carry some extra pairs to throw in the path of any errant steam rollers (hopefully piloted by a masc lesbian), just for added pizzazz.
—Evelyn Bauer, Them, 4 Sep. 2024
Mark Garlick Some 66 million years ago, an errant asteroid wiped out three-quarters of all plant and animal species on Earth, most notably taking down the dinosaurs.
—Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 15 Aug. 2024
The fuzzy fabric is also spill-resistant, so an errant splash of wine won’t be a total crisis.
—Audrey Lee, Architectural Digest, 8 Aug. 2024
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“Errant.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/errant. Accessed 8 Oct. 2024.
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errant
adjective
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