From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Erratic \Er*rat"ic\, adjective [L. erraticus, fr. errare to wander: cf. F. erratique. See {Err}.]
1. Having no certain course; roving about without a fixed destination; wandering; moving; -- hence, applied to the planets as distinguished from the fixed stars.
The earth and each erratic world. --Blackmore.
2. Deviating from a wise of the common course in opinion or conduct; eccentric; strange; queer; as, erratic conduct.
3. Irregular; changeable. ''Erratic fever.'' --Harvey.
{Erratic blocks}, {gravel, etc.} (Geol.), masses of stone which have been transported from their original resting places by the agency of water, ice, or other causes.
{Erratic phenomena}, the phenomena which relate to transported materials on the earth's surface.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
1. One who deviates from common and accepted opinions; one who is eccentric or preserve in his intellectual character.
2. A rogue. [Obs.] --Cockeram.
3. (Geol.) Any stone or material that has been borne away from its original site by natural agencies; esp., a large block or fragment of rock; a bowlder.
Note: In the plural the term is applied especially to the loose gravel and stones on the earth's surface, including what is called drift.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
adjective
1: having no fixed course; "an erratic comet"; "his life followed a wandering course"; "a planetary vagabond" [syn: {planetary}, {wandering}]
2: liable to sudden unpredictable change; "erratic behavior"; "fickle weather"; "mercurial twists of temperament"; "a quicksilver character, cool and willful at one moment, utterly fragile the next" [syn: {fickle}, {mercurial}, {quicksilver(a)}]
3: likely to perform unpredictably; "erratic winds are the bane of a sailor"; "a temperamental motor; sometimes it would start and sometimes it wouldn't"; "that beautiful but temperamental instrument the flute"- Osbert Lancaster [syn: {temperamental}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
271 Moby Thesaurus words for "erratic": aberrant, aberrative, abnormal, adrift, afloat, agnostic, aimless, alternating, ambiguous, amorphous, anomalistic, anomalous, bizarre, broken, capricious, careening, casual, catchy, chancy, changeable, changeful, changing, character, choppy, circuitous, crackpot, crank, crankish, cranky, crotchety, curving, departing, desultory, deviable, deviant, deviating, deviative, deviatory, devious, dicey, different, digressive, directionless, disarticulated, disconnected, discontinuous, discursive, disjunct, disordered, disorderly, dispersed, disproportionate, divagatory, divaricate, divergent, diversified, diversiform, dizzy, dotty, doubtful, doubting, dubious, eccentric, equivocal, erose, errant, exceptional, excursive, extraordinary, fast and loose, fey, fickle, fitful, flake, flaky, flickering, flighty, flitting, fluctuant, fluctuating, formless, freak, freakish, frivolous, funny, giddy, gratuitous, guttering, halting, haphazard, herky-jerky, hesitant, hesitating, heteroclite, heteromorphic, hit-or-miss, idiocratic, idiosyncratic, iffy, immethodical, impetuous, impulsive, incalculable, inchoate, incoherent, inconsistent, inconstant, indecisive, indemonstrable, indirect, indiscriminate, infirm, intermittent, intermitting, irregular, irresolute, irresponsible, jagged, jerky, kinky, kook, kooky, labyrinthine, lurching, maggoty, mazy, meandering, meaningless, mercurial, misshapen, moody, motley, mutable, nonconformist, nonstandard, nonsymmetrical, nonsystematic, nonuniform, nut, nutty, odd, oddball, orderless, out-of-the-way, outlandish, patchy, peculiar, planetary, planless, pluralistic, polysemous, promiscuous, quaint, queer, quirky, ragged, rambling, random, recluse, restless, rough, roundabout, roving, scatterbrained, scrappy, screwball, screwy, senseless, serpentine, shapeless, shifting, shifty, shuffling, singular, skeptical, snaky, snatchy, spasmatic, spasmic, spasmodic, spastic, spineless, sporadic, spotty, staggering, straggling, straggly, strange, strange duck, stray, straying, subnormal, swerving, systemless, touch-and-go, turning, twisted, twisting, unaccountable, unarranged, uncertain, unclassified, unconfirmable, uncontrolled, unconventional, unconvinced, undependable, undirected, undisciplined, undivinable, unequable, unequal, uneven, unfixed, unforeseeable, ungraded, unjoined, unmethodical, unmetrical, unnatural, unordered, unorganized, unorthodox, unpersuaded, unpredictable, unprovable, unregular, unreliable, unrestrained, unrhythmical, unsettled, unsorted, unstable, unstable as water, unstaid, unsteadfast, unsteady, unsure, unsymmetrical, unsystematic, ununiform, unusual, unverifiable, vacillating, vagarious, vagrant, vague, variable, variegated, variform, various, varying, veering, vicissitudinary, vicissitudinous, volatile, wacky, wandering, wanton, wavering, wavery, wavy, wayward, weird, weirdo, whimsical, winding, wishy-washy, wobbling, wobbly, zigzag
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