Erroneous

How to spell erroneous

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce erroneous

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does erroneous mean?

1. adjectiveWrong because it is based on a mistake or inaccurate information.

Erroneous in a sentence

• The report drew an erroneous conclusion from incomplete figures.

• Her erroneous assumption about the deadline caused the whole team to rush.

Where does erroneous come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin erroneus, meaning 'straying' or 'wandering', which was built on erro, a noun for a wanderer or vagrant, and ultimately on the verb errare, 'to wander off course or stray'. In Latin the idea moved naturally from physically wandering away to mentally going astray, and so to being mistaken, which is exactly the modern sense of being wrong or based on error. English adopted it in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, partly through Old French and partly straight from Latin, originally describing someone who roamed about before it settled into 'mistaken'. The same errare root gives us the plain word 'error' as well as 'err' and even 'erratic', all carrying that flavour of straying from the right path. For spelling, it helps to remember that the double r belongs to errare and 'error', and that the ending is the tricky -eous rather than a simple -ous.

How the word is built

• err- (from Latin errare: to wander, stray)
• -one- (agent/wanderer element)
• -ous (adjective suffix: full of, characterised by)