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 ...
Erranthas a split history. It comes from Anglo-French, a language in which two confusingly similar verbs with identical spellings ("errer") coexisted. Oneerrermeant "to err" and comes from the Latinerrare,meaning "to wander" or "to err." The seconderrermeant "to travel," and traces to...
After this unwelcome interruption, the college grace before meals has now been restored (in Latin), in addition to the return of formal meals with gowns (and, on Sundays, black tie). In some place, where you let it and protect it, nature is healing. Meanwhile, below, some beautiful musi...
Words You Always Have to Look Up How to Use Em Dashes (—), En Dashes (–) , and Hyphens (-) Words in Disguise: Do these seem familiar? Why is '-ed' sometimes pronounced at the end of a word? Democracy or Republic: What's the difference?
Share Games & Quizzes See All
late 14c., variant oferrant(q.v.); at first merely derogatory, "wandering, vagrant;" then (16c.) gradually losing its opprobrious force and acquiring a meaning "thoroughgoing, downright, notorious." Advertisement err(v.) c. 1300, from Old Frencherrer"go astray, lose one's way; make a...
"traveling, roving," from Anglo-French erraunt, from two Old French words that were… See origin and meaning of errant.