Errant is used to describe someone whose actions are considered unacceptable or wrong by other people. For example, an errant husband is unfaithful to his partner.
[formal]
Usually his cases involved errant husbands and wandering wives.
His errant son at Dartmouth ran up debts of £2250.
Synonyms: sinning, offending, straying, wayward More Synonyms of errant
More Synonyms of errant
errant in British English
(ˈɛrənt)
adjective(often postpositive)
1. archaic or literary
wandering in search of adventure
2.
erring or straying from the right course or accepted standards
Derived forms
errantly (ˈerrantly)
adverb
Word origin
C14: from Old French: journeying, from Vulgar Latin iterāre (unattested), from Latin iter journey; influenced by Latin errāre to err
errant in American English
(ˈɛrənt)
adjective
1.
roving or wandering, esp. in search of adventure; itinerant
a knight-errant
2.
a.
erring or straying from what is right or the right course
b.
shifting about
an errant wind
3. Obsolete
arrant
Derived forms
errantly (ˈerrantly)
adverb
Word origin
ME erraunt < OFr errant, prp. of errer < ML iterare, to travel < L iter, a journey: see itinerant; (sense 2) OFr, prp. of errer (see err), confused with errer, to rove, travel
Examples of 'errant' in a sentence
errant
Perhaps he was committed to protecting his errant son.
Jane Dunn ELIZABETH AND MARY: Cousins, Rivals, Queens (2003)
Is it the case that bonds with errant fathers should be kept going at all cost?
Times, Sunday Times (2013)
Her errant father bequeathed little to his daughter.
Times, Sunday Times (2011)
Thereafter, successful suits by wives against errant husbands were not unusual.
Garraty, John Arthur The American Nation: A History of the United States to 1877 (1995)
His anxiety reminded me of a mother's concern for an errant son.
Times, Sunday Times (2008)
Some drift away, becoming yet another errant father statistic.
The Sun (2006)
An old head on young shoulders, he rightly views his errant father with suspicion and hostility.
Times, Sunday Times (2012)
He looks well rested, although he did jar his sore wrist with one errant shot yesterday.
Times, Sunday Times (2013)
To stop being one will be a step towards making your errant husband realise that there is a price to pay for his besotted bubble.
Times, Sunday Times (2006)
A golfer's errant shot ended up on an ant hill.
Christianity Today (2000)
1 (adjective)
Definition
behaving in a way considered to be unacceptable
His errant son ran up debts of over £3000.
Synonyms
sinning
offending
straying
wayward
deviant (old-fashioned)
social reactions to deviant and criminal behaviour
erring
photos of the erring politician back in the bosom of his supportive family
aberrant
His rages and aberrant behaviour worsened.
2 (adjective)
Definition
wandering in search of adventure
(old-fashioned, literary)
the days of King Arthur's knights errant
Synonyms
wandering
a band of wandering musicians
journeying
roaming
rambling
roving
nomadic
the nomadic tribes of the Western Sahara
itinerant
the author's experiences as an itinerant musician
peripatetic
Her father was in the army and the family led a peripatetic existence.
Additional synonyms
in the sense of aberrant
Definition
not normal, accurate, or correct
His rages and aberrant behaviour worsened.
Synonyms
abnormal,
odd,
strange,
extraordinary,
wandering,
curious,
weird,
peculiar,
eccentric,
straying,
queer (archaic),
irregular,
rambling,
erratic,
deviant (old-fashioned),
defective,
off-the-wall (slang),
oddball (informal),
divergent,
anomalous,
untypical,
wacko (slang, old-fashioned),
outré,
daggy (Australian, New Zealand, informal)
in the sense of deviant
Definition
deviating from what is considered acceptable behaviour
social reactions to deviant and criminal behaviour
Synonyms
aberrant,
abnormal,
twisted,
warped,
wayward,
devious,
deviate,
perverted,
perverse,
sick (informal),
bent (slang),
kinky (slang),
freaky (slang),
pervy (slang),
sicko (informal)
in the sense of erring
photos of the erring politician back in the bosom of his supportive family