Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Completely such; thoroughgoing.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Wandering; itinerant; vagrant; errant: as, a knight arrant; an arrant preacher: especially in thief arrant or arrant thief, a roving, outlawed robber; a highwayman. Now written errant.
- Notorious; manifest; unmitigated; downright: in a bad sense (derived from the noun qualified): as, an arrant rogue; an arrant coward; arrant nonsense.
- Thorough; downright; genuine: in a good sense.
- Synonyms Utter, rank, consummate, perfect.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Notoriously or preëminently bad; thorough or downright, in a bad sense; shameless; unmitigated.
- adjective obsolete Thorough or downright, in a good sense.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
Utter ;complete . - adjective Alternative spelling of
errant .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective without qualification; used informally as (often pejorative) intensifiers
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word arrant.
Examples
-
Event 2: We say homosexuality is a variant sexuality which does no intrinsic harm to the consenting adults that practice it or anyone else outwith their relationship, rejecting in no uncertain terms your arrant presumption that you have the privilege to impose your morés on us -- or anyone else, for that matter -- and criticising your judgementalism as ethically retarded.
An Open Letter to John C. Wright Hal Duncan 2009
-
Event 2: We say homosexuality is a variant sexuality which does no intrinsic harm to the consenting adults that practice it or anyone else outwith their relationship, rejecting in no uncertain terms your arrant presumption that you have the privilege to impose your morés on us -- or anyone else, for that matter -- and criticising your judgementalism as ethically retarded.
Archive 2009-08-01 Hal Duncan 2009
-
For that matter, there were unmistakable signs in Sandy himself of what would have been called arrant terror in any other man.
Trailin'! Max Brand 1918
-
But this latest attack is the kind of arrant nonsense up with which I will not put!
Archive 2009-03-22 Bill Crider 2009
-
The notion that requiring students to know and master orthodoxy stifles their lovely creativity is the kind of arrant nonsense I hear from my teenagers all the time and really just because they want to avoid work.
-
Give another word in place of "arrant" that will mean the same thing.
Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature Ontario. Ministry of Education
-
But this latest attack is the kind of arrant nonsense up with which I will not put!
-
"See here, Dan," the big man went on, leaning forward; "I knowed what your arrant was the fust minute I clapped eyes on you.
Southern Lights and Shadows William Dean Howells 1878
-
Of course, the idea that Data can think without feeling emotions is arrant nonsense - you can't have one without the other.
MIND MELD: What Are The Coolest Robots in Science Fiction? 2010
-
An arrant flirt the little hussy is; but very pretty.
Mary Barton 2010
csiders09 commented on the word arrant
Nice!
October 5, 2011
dogdoc commented on the word arrant
downright; thorough; unmitigated; notorious
May 21, 2024