英和和英

別の表記

• erratick, erraticke, erratique (all obsolete)

語源

From 中期英語 erratik, erratyk, from Latin errāticus; compare Old French erratique.

発音

• (Received Pronunciation, General American, Canada, General Australian) IPA: /ɪˈɹætɪk/
• (New Zealand) IPA: /əˈɹɛtək/
• 韻: -ætɪk

形容詞

erratic (comparative more erratic, superlative most erratic)

1. Unsteady, random; prone to unexpected changes; not consistent.

   Synonym: mercurial

   Henry has been getting erratic scores on his tests: 40% last week, but 98% this week.

   • 2010, Mary Roach, “You Go First: The Alarming Prospect of Life Without Gravity”, in Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN, page 90:

     The V-2's directional system was notoriously erratic. In May 1947, a V-2 launched from White Sands Proving Ground headed south instead of north, missing downtown Juarez, Mexico, by 3 miles.

2. Deviating from normal opinions or actions; eccentric; odd.

   erratic conduct

反意語

• consistent

派生語

名詞

erratic (plural erratics)

1. (geology) A rock moved from one location to another, usually by a glacier.
   • 2003, Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, BCA, page 372:

     The term for a displaced boulder is an erratic, but in the nineteenth century the expression seemed to apply more often to the theories than to the rocks.

   • 2015 May 4, Dominick Tyler, “10 UK landscape features that you’ve probably never heard of”, in The Guardian‎:

     During the last ice-age, massive stones were carried for miles by the scouring glaciers, only to be left, like passengers at the end of the line, when the glaciers retreated. Stranded in their new surroundings with rocks with which they share no common geology, their out-of-place-ness is evoked by their name: “erratics”.

2. Anything that has erratic characteristics.

同意語

• (glaciers): dropstone

アナグラム

• Cartier, cartier, cirrate, rice rat