- 1反覆無常的；不規律的
If something is erratic, it will not stay on one path or keep one rhythm. There is no plan you can count on. A person’s mood can be erratic: warm one minute, sharp the next. A bus that comes at eight, then twenty to nine, then five past eight the next day is erratic. Doctors talk about an erratic heartbeat; weather people talk about erratic rain. It is a fairly grown-up word. In easy talk people often say “all over the place” or “up and down” instead. You can use it of people, machines, prices, or nature — anything whose next move you cannot trust. It does not mean “wrong” (that is ) and it does not mean “naughty” (that is closer to ). Though actually, scientists also use erratic as a noun for a big rock a glacier carried far from home and then dropped. Same “wandered off” idea, but most will meet the adjective first.
From the word’s history
From Middle English erratik, from Middle French erratique and Latin errāticus.
源自中古英文 erratik，經法文來自拉丁文 errāticus。
組成From Latin erraticus, built on errare, “to wander”.
同家族的字
- errorsame Latin errare
- errantsame “off the path” root
- erraticallythe adverb: in an erratic way
原始詞典資料4 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
erraticadj/ɪˈɹætɪk/
- 1
Unsteady, random; prone to unexpected changes; not consistent.
- Henry has been getting erratic scores on his tests: 40% last week, but 98% this week.
- 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
- Investigators were careful not to rule out Bryce’s erratic behaviour in his final days, including the giveaways, the sudden breakup, and the hours spent parked by the side of the freeway. These factors pointed to a mental health crisis severe enough that he wanted to disappear.
erraticnoun/ɪˈɹætɪk/
- 1
geographygeologynatural-sciencesA rock moved from one location to another, usually by a glacier.
- 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.
- 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.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。