Dictionary Definition
erratic adj
1 having no fixed course; "an erratic comet";
"his life followed a wandering course"; "a planetary vagabond"
[syn: planetary,
wandering]
2 liable to sudden unpredictable change; "erratic
behavior"; "fickle weather"; "mercurial twists of temperament"; "a
quicksilver character, cool and willful at one moment, utterly
fragile the next" [syn: fickle, mercurial, quicksilver(a)]
3 likely to perform unpredictably; "erratic winds
are the bane of a sailor"; "a temperamental motor; sometimes it
would start and sometimes it wouldn't"; "that beautiful but
temperamental instrument the flute"- Osbert Lancaster [syn:
temperamental]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -ætɪk
Translations
unsteady, random; prone to unexpected changes;
not consistent
- Finnish: epätasainen, epäsäännöllinen
Noun
erratic- a rock moved by geologic forces from one location to another, usually by a glacier
Adverb
erratically- in an erratic manner; unsteadily or randomly
- When I saw the other driver weaving erratically across the road, I decided to keep my distance.
Translations
in an erratic manner
- Finnish: epätasaisesti, epäsäännöllisesti
Extensive Definition
Erratic can refer to:
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
aberrant, aberrative, abnormal, adrift, afloat, agnostic, aimless, alternating, ambiguous, amorphous, anomalistic, anomalous, bizarre, broken, capricious, careening, casual, catchy, chancy, changeable, changeful, changing, character, choppy, circuitous, crackpot, crank, crankish, cranky, crotchety, curving, departing, desultory, deviable, deviant, deviating, deviative, deviatory, devious, dicey, different, digressive, directionless, disarticulated, disconnected, discontinuous, discursive, disjunct, disordered, disorderly, dispersed, disproportionate,
divagatory, divaricate, divergent, diversified, diversiform, dizzy, dotty, doubtful, doubting, dubious, eccentric, equivocal, erose, errant, exceptional, excursive, extraordinary, fast and
loose, fey, fickle, fitful, flake, flaky, flickering, flighty, flitting, fluctuant, fluctuating, formless, freak, freakish, frivolous, funny, giddy, gratuitous, guttering, halting, haphazard, herky-jerky,
hesitant, hesitating, heteroclite, heteromorphic,
hit-or-miss, idiocratic, idiosyncratic, iffy, immethodical, impetuous, impulsive, incalculable, inchoate, incoherent, inconsistent, inconstant, indecisive, indemonstrable, indirect, indiscriminate, infirm, intermittent, intermitting, irregular, irresolute, irresponsible, jagged, jerky, kinky, kook, kooky, labyrinthine, lurching, maggoty, mazy, meandering, meaningless, mercurial, misshapen, moody, motley, mutable, nonconformist, nonstandard, nonsymmetrical, nonsystematic, nonuniform, nut, nutty, odd, oddball, orderless, out-of-the-way,
outlandish, patchy, peculiar, planetary, planless, pluralistic, polysemous, promiscuous, quaint, queer, quirky, ragged, rambling, random, recluse, restless, rough, roundabout, roving, scatterbrained, scrappy, screwball, screwy, senseless, serpentine, shapeless, shifting, shifty, shuffling, singular, skeptical, snaky, snatchy, spasmatic, spasmic, spasmodic, spastic, spineless, sporadic, spotty, staggering, straggling, straggly, strange, strange duck, stray, straying, subnormal, swerving, systemless, touch-and-go,
turning, twisted, twisting, unaccountable, unarranged, uncertain, unclassified, unconfirmable, uncontrolled, unconventional, unconvinced, undependable, undirected, undisciplined, undivinable, unequable, unequal, uneven, unfixed, unforeseeable, ungraded, unjoined, unmethodical, unmetrical, unnatural, unordered, unorganized, unorthodox, unpersuaded, unpredictable, unprovable, unregular, unreliable, unrestrained, unrhythmical, unsettled, unsorted, unstable, unstable as water,
unstaid, unsteadfast, unsteady, unsure, unsymmetrical, unsystematic, ununiform, unusual, unverifiable, vacillating, vagarious, vagrant, vague, variable, variegated, variform, various, varying, veering, vicissitudinary,
vicissitudinous,
volatile, wacky, wandering, wanton, wavering, wavery, wavy, wayward, weird, weirdo, whimsical, winding, wishy-washy, wobbling, wobbly, zigzag