Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Sinful; guilty.
  • adjective Violating a rule or an accepted practice; erring.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Sinning; offending; guilty; causing offense.
  • Morbid; bad; corrupt; not healthy.
  • Imperfect; erroneous; incorrect: as, a, peccant citation.
  • noun An offender.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete An offender.
  • adjective Sinning; guilty of transgression; criminal.
  • adjective Morbid; corrupt.
  • adjective rare Wrong; defective; faulty.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective obsolete unhealthy; causing disease
  • adjective sinful
  • noun obsolete An offender.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective liable to sin

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin peccāns, peccant-, present participle of peccāre, to sin; see ped- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin peccāns, peccantis

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Examples

  • Nothing is safe from this porcelain peccant pilferer, this corrupt criminal crockery, for the moment you turn your back, this amazing Ash Tray will abscond with all your electronic posessions and sell them on ebay.

    Mug with a Message | Engrish.com 2004

  • Yesterday, he by severe cross-examination extracted from Lord MORLEY admission of personal knowledge of what are known as the peccant paragraphs in document handed on behalf of War Office to General GOUGH.

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 Various

  • If a person has an abscess, the medical man will say that it contains "peccant" matter, and people say that they have a "bad" arm or finger, or that they are very "bad" all over, when they only mean "diseased."

    Erewhon; or, Over the range 1910

  • If a person has an abscess, the medical man will say that it contains "peccant" matter, and people say that they have a "bad" arm or finger, or that they are very "bad" all over, when they only mean "diseased."

    Erewhon Samuel Butler 1868

  • The Timesobit is written strongly enough in the Safire style--in one case he's described as "a Pickwickian quibbler who gleefully pounced on gaffes, inexactitudes, neologisms, misnomers, solecisms and perversely peccant puns"--that it makes you wonder if he drafted it himself.

    Shelfari: Omnivoracious 2009

  • The Timesobit is written strongly enough in the Safire style--in one case he's described as "a Pickwickian quibbler who gleefully pounced on gaffes, inexactitudes, neologisms, misnomers, solecisms and perversely peccant puns"--that it makes you wonder if he drafted it himself.

    William Safire, 1929-2009 Omnivoracious 2009

  • It also tapped into the lighter side of the dour-looking Mr. Safire: a Pickwickian quibbler who gleefully pounced on gaffes, inexactitudes, neologisms, misnomers, solecisms and perversely peccant puns, like "the president's populism" and "the first lady's momulism."

    Gershon Hepner: William Safire 2009

  • The peccant cat follows me into the kitchen meowing constantly.

    2009 April 2009

  • The peccant cat follows me into the kitchen meowing constantly.

    Being A Writer – by Paul Kavanagh 2009

  • The tattle of society did its best to place the peccant husband above the suffering wife.

    My Aunt Margaret's Mirror 2008

Comments

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  • as in mendicant???

    September 21, 2007

  • not even a little! from the OED:

    1. a. Unhealthy, corrupt, diseased; causing disease. Formerly esp. of a bodily humour. Now arch. and hist.

    2. a. Of a person or other agent: that commits or has committed a sin or an offence; sinning, offending; culpable.

    b. Of an action or thing: offensive; sinful.

    September 21, 2007

  • mendicant's etymology is fascinating and amazingly parallel to peccant---

    1616, from M.Fr. mendacieux, from L. mendacium "a lie," from mendax (gen. mendacis) "lying, deceitful," related to menda "fault, defect, carelessness in writing" (cf. amend, mendicant), from PIE base *mend- "physical defect, fault." The sense evolution of mendax influenced by mentiri "to speak falsely, lie, deceive." Mendacity is attested from 1646.

    A mendicant is finding a blemish in whom - himself or in the potential giver???

    September 23, 2007

  • Gosh, fbharjo, I just was not putting mendicant together with mendacious -- I was thinking of the wandering ascetic definition of it, mendicant monk, like.

    September 24, 2007

  • "'As I thought, it is your liver that is the peccant part; or at least the most peccant of your parts.'"

    --O'Brian, The Truelove, 15

    March 9, 2008

  • In Canto XV of Don Juan, Byron lists all the foods served at a sumptuous dinner. At one point, he breaks off to say of his Muse:

    But though a 'bonne vivante,' I must confess

         Her stomach 's not her peccant part; this tale

    However doth require some slight refection,

    Just to relieve her spirits from dejection.

    Presumably, in Byron's case, the "peccant part" of his Muse was located a few inches lower than the stomach.

    June 8, 2013