Errant & Arrant

Errant (pronounced er-uhnt)

(1) Deviating from the regular or proper course; erring; straying outside established limits (often used in sport as “errant shot”, “errant punch” etc).

(2) Prone to error; misbehaved; moving in an aimless or lightly changing manner (often used in a non-human context: breezes, water-flows et al).

(3) Journeying or traveling, as a medieval knight in quest of adventure; roving adventurously (archaic, although it may in this sense still be a literary device).

(4) Utter, complete (obsolete, the meaning now served by “arrant”).

1300–1350: From the Middle English erraunt (traveling, roving), from the Anglo-Norman erraunt, from the Middle French, from the Old French errant, present participle of errer & edrer (to travel or wander), from the unattested Vulgar Latin iterāre (to journey) (and influenced by the Classical Latin errāre (to err)), from the Late Latin itinerārī, a derivative of iter (stem itiner-) (journey) and source of the modern English itinerary), from the root of ire (to go), from the primitive Indo-European root ei- (to go).  Understandably, in the Medieval era, the word was often confused with the Middle French errant (present participle of errer (to err)) so the use in old translations need to be read with care and the Old French errant in its two senses (1) the present participle of errer (to travel or wander) & (2) past participle of errer were often confused even before entering English.  In any event, much of the latter sense went with arrant (which was once a doublet of errant).  All the muddle is attributable to the link between the Old French errant with the Latin errāns, errāntem & errāre (to err) and the present participle of errer (to wander), which was from the Classical Latin iterō (I travel; I voyage) rather than errō, which is the ancestor of the etymology of error (to err; to make an error).  The comparative is more errant and the superlative most errant and the synonyms (depending on context) include aberrant, erratic, offending, stray, unorthodox, wayward, deviating, devious, drifting, errable, fallible, heretic, meandering, misbehaving, mischievous, miscreant, naughty, rambling, ranging & roaming.  The obsolete alternative spelling was erraunt.  Errant is a noun & adjective (often postpositive) and errantly is an adverb; the noun plural is errants.

Arrant (pronounced ar-uhnt)

(1) Downright; thorough-going; flagrant, utter, unmitigated; notorious (the latter in the non-derogatory sense).

(2) Wandering; errant (obsolete).

1350–1400: From the Middle English, a variant of errant (wandering, vagabond), the sense developed from its frequent use in phrases like “arrant thief” which became synonymous with “notorious thief”.  Etymologists tracking the late fourteenth century shift note that as a variant of errant, it was first merely derogatory in the sense of “a wandering vagrant” and remembered as an intensifier due to its use as an epithet because of poetic phrases such as “arrant thieves and arrant knaves” (ie “wandering bandits”).  In the 1500s the word gradually shed its opprobrious force and acquiring the meaning “thorough-going, downright and notorious (the latter in the non-derogatory sense)”.  In a limited number of specific uses, arrant can still convey a negative sense such as “arrant nonsense!” (utterly untrue) and the meaning is preserved when Shakespeare’s “arrant knaves” (from the nunnery scene in Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1) is invoked.  Remarkably, there are still dictionaries which list arrant simply as an alternative form of errant, despite in practice use having separated centuries earlier and some style guides suggest arrant should be avoided because (1) some may confuse it with errant and (2) it’s an adjective which seems used mostly in clichés.  The obsolete alternative spelling was arraunt, the obsolete comparative was arranter and the obsolete superlative, arrantest.  Arrant is an adjective and arrantly an adverb.

Errant driving: The aftermath of three Lindsay Lohan car crashes although the Maserati Quattroporte (right; borrowed from her father) suffered little more than a nudge and it's said her assistant was at the wheel at the time.