Errant, Erratic, Erroneous

A discussion of word histories and origins.
vaibhavd85
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Errant, Erratic, Erroneous

Postby vaibhavd85 » Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:20 pm

Errant (Adj): wandering
“Errer” means “to travel about”, it is derived from “iterare”, which comes form Latin “iter” which means a journey (People reminisce the words itinerary, itinerant).

Synonyms: 1) itinerant, peripatetic, roaming, wandering
2) Mischievous, misbehaving, delinquent

Example: The errant knights in search of adventure met with plenty in their journey.

Example (In the second sense): The errant kids ran away after stealing mangoes from the farm.

Example: When they had ridden a mile or more, Sir Tristram (tristam, tristan comes from sadness) spied a goodly knight before him well armed, who sat by a clear fountain with a strong horse near him, tied to an oak- tree. "Fair sir," said he, when they came near, "ye seem to be a knight errant by your arms and harness, therefore make ready now to joust with one of us, or both."

This is excerpted from the legends of King Arthur and his Knights (which I am currently reading), if you want to read more about him here is the link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristram

Erratic (Adj): odd, unpredictable

“Errare” means “to wander”, thus something that wanders from normal will be erratic in nature.

Synonyms: aberrant, deviant, capricious, abnormal.

Example: The erratic nature of the pitch made it very difficult for any batsmen to stay at the crease for a long time.

Erroneous (Adj): mistaken, wrong

The word comes from “erron”, which means “a vagabond”; “erron” is derived from “errare” the chief root that links all these words.

Synonyms: amiss, imperfect, inaccurate, flawed, inaccurate.

Example: I would have solved the problem but the data itself was erroneous (A typical engineers dilemma, I must say).

Simple cognates to remember the root errare:
Error
Err




:wink:

Perry
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Postby Perry » Sat Jan 20, 2007 11:32 pm

Nice explanations, but it seems that you have left nothing for us to add. I now just errare erratically now.
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."
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vaibhavd85
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Postby vaibhavd85 » Sun Jan 21, 2007 12:56 am

Nice explanations, but it seems that you have left nothing for us to add. I now just errare erratically now.
Well I have a doubt, as I said in the above post "errare" comes from "iterare" and "iter" means "journey".My question is that are these "iter","iterare" related linguistically to the words like iterate, iteration? I have looked up the references that I have, but I was unable to find any link as in dictionaries "iterare" is also used as "to repeat" which comes from "iterum" meaning again.

vaibhavd85
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Postby vaibhavd85 » Sun Jan 28, 2007 10:13 pm

Somebody please answer my question posted above?

:)

Stargzer
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Postby Stargzer » Mon Jan 29, 2007 2:41 am

The Online Etymology Dictionary has this:
errant
1335, from Anglo-Fr. erraunt, from two O.Fr. words that were confused even before they reached Eng.: 1. O.Fr. errant, prp. of errer "to travel or wander," from L.L. iterare, from L. iter "journey, way," from root of ire "to go" (see ion); 2. O.Fr. errant, pp. of errer (see err). Much of the sense of the latter has gone with Eng. arrant (q.v.).


arrant
c.1386, variant of errant (q.v.), at first merely derogatory, then (1550) acquiring a meaning "thoroughgoing, downright."


iterate (v.)
1533, "to do again, repeat," back-formation from iteration (1477), from L. iterationem (nom. iteratio) "repetition," noun of action from iterare "do again, repeat," from iterum "again."
From the Perseus Project:
ĭtĕro , āvi, ātum, 1, v. a.,
I. to do a thing a second time, to repeat (syn.: duplico, repeto).
... (follow the link for all the gory details)

iterō āvī, ātus, āre [iterum] , to do a second time, repeat: cum duplicantur iteranturque verba: saepe eadem, L.: iterata pugna, renewed, L.: ubi Phoebus iteraverit ortūs, has risen a second time, O.: cursūs relictos, H.: aequor, embark again upon, H.: Muricibus Tyriis iteratae vellera lanae, dyed twice, H.: nullis iterata priorum Ianua, reached again, O.: agro arato . . . iterato, ploughed a second time: truncis Lapsa cavis iterare mella, celebrate, H.

iterātiō ōnis, f [itero] , a repetition: [iterationem is the feminine accusative singular]


iter itineris, n [I-] , a going, walk, way: dicam in itinere, on the way, T.--A going, journey, passage, march, voyage:

iterum adv., again, a second time, once more, anew:


itō --, --, āre, freq. [eo] , to go: ad cenas [to a dinner, principal meal].

eo to go, walk, ride, sail, fly, move, pass
îtô fut imperat act 2nd sg
îtô fut imperat act 3rd sg

īre īrī, infin.. of eō.

īvī or iī (3d pers. rarely īt, V.; inf. īvisse or. īsse), itūrus (P. praes. iēns, euntis; ger. eundum), īre [1 I-] , to go, walk, ride, sail, fly, move, pass: ...
From ito came the last words of the priest in the Latin Mass: Ite missa est, which was usually translated as "Go, the Mass is ended", to which the reply was Deo gratius, "Thanks be to God!". One could read that interaction two ways, especially if one was a youngster eager to leave ... :wink:
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
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