Erroneously

How to spell erroneously

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce erroneously

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does erroneously mean?

1. adverbIn a way that is mistaken, incorrect, or based on a wrong assumption.

Erroneously in a sentence

• The invoice erroneously listed the price as double the agreed amount.

• The report erroneously stated that the meeting had been cancelled.

Where does erroneously come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb errare, which literally meant 'to wander' or 'to stray', the same sense that survives in 'errant' and in the wandering 'knight-errant'. From errare came the adjective erroneus, describing something that has gone astray and therefore is mistaken or wrong. English picked up the adjective 'erroneous' in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, largely by way of Old French and directly from Latin, and the adverb 'erroneously' was formed in English by adding the ordinary '-ly' ending. The link between wandering and being wrong is a neat one: a mistaken belief has quite literally strayed from the truth. The spelling trap lives in the middle, where the double 'r' from errare meets the single 'n', followed by the gliding '-eous-ly' tail that is easy to misjudge.

How the word is built

• err- (from Latin errare: to wander, to stray)
• -one-
• -ous (adjective: full of)
• -ly (adverb)