errans

Latin

Etymology

Present active participle of errō.

Participle

errāns (genitive errantis); third-declension one-termination participle

1. straying, errant, erring, going astray
2. wandering, wandering about, roving, straying, roaming
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 2.569–570:

     “[...] dant clāram incendia lūcem / errantī passimque oculōs per cūncta ferentī.”

     “[...] the fires gave bright light to my eyes, [so I could see Helen,] and [she] by wandering here and there, through [it] all [was still] surviving.”

   1. ellipsis of stēlla errāns (“planet”, literally “wandering star”)
3. (figuratively) wandering as an unclear mental state
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 4.669:

     expedit errantem nemorī grātissima coniūnx

     [His] wife, dearest to the grove, frees [him from] wandering.
     (Egeria (mythology) explains a dream which King Numa Pompilius cannot understand; idiomatically, Egeria resolves his uncertainty.)

4. mistaking

Declension

Third-declension participle.

	singular			plural
	masc./fem.	neuter		masc./fem.	neuter
nominative	errāns			errantēs	errantia
genitive	errantis			errantium
dative	errantī			errantibus
accusative	errantem	errāns		errantēs errantīs	errantia
ablative	errante errantī1			errantibus
vocative	errāns			errantēs	errantia

¹When used purely as an adjective.

Derived terms

• inerrāns

Descendants

• Italian: errante
• Old French: errant
  • English: errant
  • French: errant
• Portuguese: errante
• Spanish: errante

References

• “errans”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “errans”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • the planets: stellae errantes, vagae
    
  • to direct a person who has lost his way: erranti viam monstrare