ERRATIC

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does erratic mean? 

• ERRATIC (adjective)
  The adjective ERRATIC has 3 senses:

1. liable to sudden unpredictable change

2. having no fixed course

3. likely to perform unpredictably

  Familiarity information: ERRATIC used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ERRATIC (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Liable to sudden unpredictable change

Synonyms:

erratic; fickle; mercurial; quicksilver

Context example:

a quicksilver character, cool and willful at one moment, utterly fragile the next

Similar:

changeable; changeful (such that alteration is possible; having a marked tendency to change)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Having no fixed course

Synonyms:

erratic; planetary; wandering

Context example:

a planetary vagabond

Similar:

unsettled (not settled or established)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Likely to perform unpredictably

Synonyms:

erratic; temperamental

Context example:

that beautiful but temperamental instrument the flute

Similar:

undependable; unreliable (not worthy of reliance or trust)

 Context examples 

Impelled by the blows that rained upon him, now from this side, now from that, White Fang swung back and forth like an erratic and jerky pendulum.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Uranus, the planet of all things unexpected, was directly aiming his erratic vibrations to the transiting Sun and new moon in Scorpio.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

It was at this stage that Thomas Mugridge’s erratic soul brought him into the scene.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He would have borrowed it, by preference, from Brissenden, but that erratic individual had disappeared.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

But that Mycroft should break out in this erratic fashion!

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was as if the devil was in him, for he sprang here and sprang there, now thrusting and now cutting, catching blows on his shield, turning them with his blade, stooping under the swing of an axe, springing over the sweep of a sword, so swift and so erratic that the man who braced himself for a blow at him might find him six paces off ere he could bring it down.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And now, said he, it really would be a good thing that we should all go over the house together and make certain that this rather erratic burglar did not, after all, carry anything away with him.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The man who reviews his own life, as I do mine, in going on here, from page to page, had need to have been a good man indeed, if he would be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents neglected, many opportunities wasted, many erratic and perverted feelings constantly at war within his breast, and defeating him.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She could not follow the flights of his mind, and when his brain got beyond her, she deemed him erratic.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

At the best, in her most charitable frame of mind, she considered the statement of his views to be a caprice, an erratic and uncalled-for prank.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)