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Errant   Listen
adjective
Errant  adj.  
1.
Wandering; deviating from an appointed course, or from a direct path; roving. "Seven planets or errant stars in the lower orbs of heaven."
2.
Notorious; notoriously bad; downright; arrant. "Would make me an errant fool."
3.
(Eng. Law) Journeying; itinerant; formerly applied to judges who went on circuit and to bailiffs at large.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Errant" Quotes from Famous Books



... Knight-errant of the Never-ending Quest, And Minstrel of the Unfulfilled Desire; For ever tuning thy frail earthly lyre To some unearthly music, and possessed With painful passionate longing to invest The golden dream of Love's immortal fire With mortal robes of beautiful ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke

... were amazed, And often on each other gazed; For both were frightened to the heart, And just began to cry,—What art! Then softly turned aside to view, Whether the lights were burning blue. The gentle pilgrims soon aware on't, Told 'em their calling, and their errant; "Good folks, you need not be afraid, We are but saints," the hermits said; "No hurt shall come to you or yours; But, for that pack of churlish boors, Not fit to live on Christian ground, They and their houses ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift

... France? We, whipped by those Prussian pigs, we!" He came up to Weiss and grasped him violently by the lapel of his coat. His entire long frame, lean as that of the immortal Knight Errant, seemed to breathe defiance and unmitigated contempt for the foe, whoever he might be, regardless of time, place, or any other circumstance. "Listen to what I tell you, sir. If the Prussians dare to show their faces here, we will kick them home again. You hear me? we will kick them from here ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... Most Illustrious and Puissant Knight Errant, Sir Slosson Thompson, Erstwhile of Chicago, but now illumining ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... becomes ludicrous, especially to those whose tastes rather tend in the opposite direction. The strange figure and accoutrements of Don Quixote raised great laughter among the gay ladies at the inn, and induced the puissant knight-errant to administer to them the rebuke "Excessive ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... Errant thoughts, light as summer fleece, drifted across her mind. Often, in such moments, she strove to realise that she was now mistress of herself; ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... feared. I refused my consent to the loan by aid of which Great Britain's enemies had designed to prosecute a war against her. None of those theatrical displays with which sometimes I have impressed the errant vulgar were necessary. The greatest name in European finance was refused to the transaction—and the Great War died in the ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer

... friend. Claire unhesitatingly declared that the new inspector was a very good fellow. When he passed in front of her, pursued by the coarse abuse of the others, she gave him a pleasant smile, sitting nonchalantly behind her stall, with unruly errant locks of pale hair straying over her neck and her brow, and the bodice of her dress pinned all askew. He also often saw her dipping her hands into her tanks, transferring the fish from one compartment to another, and amusing herself ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... the advisability of so far-reaching a measure. Thus, on 4th July 1798, Hatsell, Clerk of the House of Commons, wrote to Auckland that of all possible plans a Union was the worst, "full of difficulties, to be brought about by errant jobs; and, when done, not answering the purpose. You must take out the teeth, or give the Catholics sops to eat. One or other; but the half-measure won't do." Better balanced was the judgement of the Earl of Carlisle, as stated ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... he expected, in any case, to find his errant daughter there, for had not Bunty said there was a picnic down at the river? But he thought, there might be ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner

... neighbourhood, but, upon my soul, I don't belong to their fraternity. No, madam, I'm an unlucky fellow, but with the best morals in the world: the fact is, I have lost myself in the forest; the storm rages—and as I am no knight-errant to court unnecessary hardships, respectfully I entreat the hospitality of this roof for the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... weighs as a heavy burden upon a wandering people; food is scanty and uncertain of supply, hunters and their families must range over extensive countries, and often remove from place to place. Judging that children of feeble or defective formation are not likely to survive the hardships of this errant life, they destroy all such unpromising offspring,[237] or desert them to a slower and more dreadful fate. The lot of all is so hard that few born with any great constitutional defect could long survive, and arrive ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... the three knights-errant got under way next day. In a glare of July sunshine they rode away in search of adventures, while Father and Mother Eddy in the kitchen doorway looked ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... intimacy with Delafield, thenceforward said not a word of him, and Warkworth's jealousy had died for lack of fuel. In relation to Julie, Delafield had been surely the mere shadow and agent of his little cousin the Duchess—a friendly, knight-errant sort of person, with a liking for the distressed. What! the heir-presumptive of Chudleigh Abbey, and one of the most famous of English dukedoms, when even he, the struggling, penurious officer, would never have dreamed ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... when Geraint Beheld her first in field, awaiting him, He felt, were she the prize of bodily force, Himself beyond the rest pushing could move The chair of Idris. Yniol's rusted arms Were on his princely person, but thro' these Princelike his bearing shone; and errant knights And ladies came, and by and by the town Flow'd in, and settling circled all the lists. And there they fixt the forks into the ground, And over these they placed the silver wand, And over that the golden sparrow-hawk ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... scarcely fair to describe Hermione's tone as suspicious, for she was a loyal soul, and was wondering in her heart of hearts what manner of man this knight errant could be; but his very self-possession fluttered her; she had been so accustomed to think and act in her own defense that she experienced a subtle fear of this calm, cool-headed, masterful person whom she must learn to ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... seule toujours!—Perdue Comme un point invisible en un mouvant dsert, L'aventurire passe errant dans l'tendue, Et voit tel cap secret qui n'est pas dcouvert. Tremblante voyageuse flotter condamne, Elle sent sur son col que depuis une anne L'algue et les gomons ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield

... demanded Yerkes, and the woman signed to us to go on in. Yerkes led the way again impulsively as any knight-errant rescuing beleaguered dames, but I looked back and saw that the Syrian woman had locked the outer door. Before I could tell Will that, he was in the next room, so I followed, and, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... pieces of silk and porcelain, which we were told were presents to us from the Emperor, and we consequently made our bows as they passed. We were also amused with a Chinese puppet-shew which differs but little from an English one. There are a distressed princess confined in a castle, and a knight-errant, who, after fighting wild beasts and dragons, sets her at liberty and marries her; wedding-feasts, jousts, and tournaments. Besides these, there was also a comic drama, in which some personages not unlike punch and his wife, Bandemeer and Scaramouch performed capital parts. This ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... tingling the full blood of enthusiasm, and opened up unconsciously to her view a rude field of knight-errantry, whose principles sat strangely close with the best traditions of her own earlier land and time. They were knights-errant, and for all on the Ellisville trail there was but one lady. So hopeless was the case of each that they forbore to ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... remarked, with a little satisfied sigh as she selected an ortolan, "is a very satisfactory place to be carried off to. And you," she added, leaning across the table and touching his fingers for a moment tenderly, "are a very delightful knight-errant." ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Zerbino all the arms unites, And hangs like a fair trophy, on a pine. And, to preserve them safe from errant knights, Natives or foreigners, in one short line Upon the sapling's verdant surface writes, ORLANDO'S ARMS, KING CHARLES'S PALADINE. As he would say, "Let none this harness move, Who cannot with its lord ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... qualis quantusque cavo Polyphemus in antro Lanigeras claudit pecudes, atque ubera pressat, Centum alii curva hæc habitant ad littora vulgo Infandi Cyclopes, et altis montibus errant.” Æn. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... obscurantic matter will creep in. Well, when I come to weigh the completed record, I must allow for that; and, meanwhile, so far as time and my own limitations as selector permit, I will prune and clear away from the line of vision these weeds of errant fancy. For the record must of all things be honest and comprehensive; rather than shapely, effective, or literary. To be sure the pundits would say that this is to misuse and play with words; to perpetrate a contradiction in terms. Well, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... the soldier's work seems to be—that he is paid little for it—and regularly: while you traffickers, and exchangers, and others occupied in presumably benevolent business, like to be paid much for it—and by chance. I never can make out how it is that a knight-errant does not expect to be paid for his trouble, but a pedlar-errant always does;—that people are willing to take hard knocks for nothing, but never to sell ribands cheap;—that they are ready to go on fervent crusades to recover the tomb of a buried God, never on any travels ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... in prison, Philip," the count said warmly. "I hear that the Admiral has made you and my cousin knights; and more than that, I heard half an hour since from De Valecourt that, while carrying despatches to the Germans, you had time to do a little knight-errant's work, and had the good fortune to save his daughter from being massacred by the Catholics. By my faith, chevalier, there is no saying what you will come to, if ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... fancy by some of the ladies' maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. After seeing for a long time little but rusticity, their lively manner, and gay inviting appearance, pleased me so much, that I thought, for the moment, I could have been a knight-errant for them. [Footnote: On reflection, at the distance of several years, I wonder that my venerable fellow-traveller should have read this passage without ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... since passed away. It represents not only a vanished taste in architecture, but sentiments also which are now even more remote. The Earl of Harrington, under whom the Gothic transfiguration was accomplished, seems to have regarded himself as a species of knight-errant. Round the fluted pillars by which the roof of the hall is supported—a hall which he christened "the Hall of the Fair Star"—were strapped imitation lances, and the windows were darkened by scrolls which all bore the same motto, ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... rit quand l'equinoxe irrite le querelle Sinistrement, avec son haleine de grele; Il est joyeux, ce burg, soldat encore debout, Quand, jappant comme un chien poursuivi par un loup, Novembre, dans la brume errant de roche en roche, Repond au hurlement de janvier qui s'approche. Le donjon crie: En guerre! o tourmente, es-tu la? Il craint peu l'ouragan, lui qui vit Attila. Oh! les lugubres nuits! Combats dans la bruine; La nuee attaquant, farouche, la ruine! Un ruissellement vaste, ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo

... part with That humble title, and write honourable; Right honourable, Marall; my right honourable daughter; If all I have, or e'er shall get, will do it. I will have her well attended; there are ladies Of errant knights decay'd, and brought so low, That, for cast clothes, and meat, will gladly serve her. And 'tis my glory, though I come from the city, To have their issue, whom I have undone, To kneel ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... born May 13, 1707, in a country place named Roshult in Smaland, near Skane, Sweden. He was called Charles after the well known Swedish knight errant, King Charles XII., then at ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various

... Scoffers will not be slow to find in Volapk and the White Knight's inventions a common characteristic—their fantasticness. Perhaps there really is some analogy in the fact that both inventors had to mount their hobby-horses and ride errant through sundry lands, thrusting their creations on an unwilling world. But the particular kind of white night of which Volapk was born is the nuit blanche, literally "white night," but idiomatically ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark

... confidence in himself returned in these emergencies, and he was doing invaluable work. People were grateful, but the man's ways and looks were so strange, his restlessness so tragic, that they dubbed him "le Juif Errant." ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... your worship, Sir Knight-errant," quoth Sancho to his master, "be sure you don't forget what you promised me about the island; for I dare say I shall make shift to govern it, let it be ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education

... native brought a letter from the errant lady addressed to her furious spouse. This missive is (without explaining how he got it) reproduced by an American journalist, T. Everett Harre, in a series of articles, The Heavenly Sinner: "I suggest," runs an extract, "you come to your senses and give me my freedom ... I am going with a ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... of duty. Why should that sense fall upon one as a weight and a burden? I knew that I was doomed that day to give up the bulk of my store of hard-wrung coin to the relief of this Ada Lowery. But I swore to myself that Tripp's whiskey dollar would not be forthcoming. He might play knight-errant at my expense, but he would indulge in no wassail afterward, commemorating my weakness and gullibility. In a kind of chilly anger I put on ...
— Options • O. Henry

... and accepted members of this order of modern knights-errant, from hot-headed, ill-fated Pilatre de Rozier down to Gaston Tissandier, the man who still edits La Nature in the lower strata of an ocean into the treacherous upper depths of which he has risen seven miles. Your true aeronaut is not an inventor of flying-machines, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... him to himself with honied whispers of American Rails, he answered but with babble of green fields. He is back in his wonted corner now: quite cured, apparently, and tractable. And yet — let the sun shine too wantonly in Throgmorton Street, let an errant zephyr, quick with the warm South, fan but his cheek too wooingly on his way to the station; and will he not once more snap his chain and away? Ay, truly: and next time he will ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame

... the errant one, seen sliding out of the swinging door, and summoned in a loud, clear voice to come back, had flatly disobeyed and had gone upon his ways 'Grinning at me,' said the aggrieved Mr Gregory, 'like a dashed ape.' A most unjust ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... strongly condemned the agreement made in 1859 between Napoleon III and Piedmont, because he foresaw its inevitable consequences. Mazzini, Garibaldi, and Cavour were a trio who largely influenced their country's destiny. Garibaldi has been called the knight-errant; Mazzini, the prophet of Italian unity; and Cavour was the hub which formed the centre of the wheel ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... James rode off the prince turned to Walter. "As Audley must needs fight as a knight-errant, Sir Walter Somers, do you take your place by my side, for there is no more valiant knight in my army than you have often proved yourself ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty

... into the lower world, but arises again as God into heaven and becomes the leader and judge of mankind. We have the confirmation of the Church (or, in earlier times, of the Tribe) by means of a Eucharist or Communion which binds together all the members, living or dead, and restores errant individuals through the Sacrifice of the hero and the Forgiveness of their sins; and we have the belief in a bodily Resurrection and continued life of the members within the fold of the Church (or ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... I thought as well of myself, as any knight errant that ever handled a sword and spear. I took my perspective glass and went up to the side of the hill, to see what I could discover; and I perceived very soon, by my glass, that there were one and twenty savages, three prisoners, and three canoes, and that their chief concern seemed to be ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... close is really the art of the poet; for he knows, were each episode to be told by itself, we should have only a string of novelle, and not the picture he desired to paint,—that of the world of chivalry, with its knights-errant in search of adventures, its damsels in distress, its beautiful gardens and lordly palaces, its hermits and magicians, its hippogriffs and dragons, and all the paraphernalia ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... be blockheads in the common road. Do but survey this crowded house to-night:— Here's still encouragement for those that write. 30 Our author, to divert his friends to-day, Stocks with variety of fools his play; And that there may be something gay and new, Two ladies-errant has exposed to view: The first a damsel, travelled in romance; The t'other more refined; she comes from France: Rescue, like courteous knights, the nymph from danger; And kindly treat, like ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... other healthy hopes of his conceiving. At any rate, he was free to bring her his daily tale of worship, to glean a look of kindness from her clear eyes. This was his happiness. For her sake he would sacrifice it. For Zora's sake he would marry Emmy. The heart of Septimus was that of a Knight-Errant confident in the righteousness of his quest. The certainty had come all at once in the flash of inspiration. Besides, was he not carrying out Zora's wish? He remembered her words. It would be the greatest pleasure he could give her—to become her brother, her real brother. ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... now interposing, "I am happy to introduce to you as Mr. Chillingly, not only the son of an old friend of mine, not only the knight-errant of whose gallant conduct on behalf of your protegee Jessie Wiles we have heard so much, but the eloquent arguer who has conquered my better judgment in a matter on which I thought myself infallible. Tell Mr. Lethbridge ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... happen to hear a melancholy old barrel-organ in the courtyard, go to the window and give a penny to the poor errant [Footnote: Errant: wandering.] musician—perhaps it is Don Gaetano! If you find that his organ disturbs you, try if you like it, better by making him stand a little farther off, but don't send him away with harshness! He has to bear so many hard words as ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... errant tear away, and made her way to a store—a new place sprung up, like the bank and the hotel, with the growing importance of the town. The stock of ready-made clothing drove her to despair. It seemed that what women resided in Hazleton must invariably dress in Mother Hubbard gowns of cheap ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... female fashions for 1851 quite deplorable by contrast—especially the shoes, and the way of dressing the hair; we almost came to the conclusion that female beauty when unadorned is adorned the most. It awes and chastens one so! and wakes up the knight-errant inside! even the smartest French boots can't do this! not the pinkest silken hose in all Paris! Not all the frills and underfrills and wonderfrills that M. Paul ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... century the more purely intellectual side of mysticism comes out more strongly than the exstatic—so dominant in these societies of the fourteenth—and we have Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa, with Giordano Bruno, the martyred knight-errant of philosophy, and Paracelsus, the much slandered scientist, who drew his knowledge directly from the original eastern fountain, instead of ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant

... work is held up as a test, through appreciation or failure to appreciate, of a reader's ability to follow another's feelings, to understand far-away hints and allusions, to follow the tracks of an irregular and errant wit. ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

... attachment for Rose, in which the little boy, since his appearance on the scene, is becoming a large participator. This child Jack is beginning to love intensely; and the doubloons, well invested, placing her above the feeling of dependence, she is likely to end her life, once so errant and disturbed, in tranquillity and a ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... wanted to know if they should set off in pursuit of their errant guide, but Mr. Bell said that it would be the best thing to let him ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham

... blood, entitled to bear arms, who, having become separated from their feudal lords by their own act, or by dismissal, or by fate, wander about the country in the capacity of somewhat disreputable knights-errant, without ostensible means of living, in some cases offering themselves for hire to new masters, in others supporting themselves by pillage; or who, falling a grade in the social scale, go into trade, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... sick. The diagnosis of Yabolo, the wizard, was that her soul had wandered in sleep down to the river and had been swallowed by a fish. Yabolo had caught the fish and lured the soul into a tree, but now he demanded such a big price to restore the errant soul to the girl that her father, Bakuma's uncle, would not pay it, so she would surely die; then they would all have to be exorcised, which inferred a further loss of relative freedom for another four days. Indeed with all these actual and possible delays it seemed to ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... followed by the rustling thrill of the bell-wire, and then by a tinkling far below, too gentle to waken the house that continued to enjoy the undisturbed dream of its repose. At first we supposed it might be but some late-home-going knight-errant from a feast of shells, in a mood, 'between malice and true-love,' seeking to disquiet the slumbers of Old Christopher, in expectation of seeing his night-cap (which he never wears) popped out of the window, and of hearing his voice ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... Conjecture as to its meaning was not difficult, but, in the utter absence of information, certainty there could be none. Under any circumstances, it was to be expected that Rhoda would think and speak of Mrs. Widdowson no less severely than of the errant Bella Royston. ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... solve readily with the sweet milk of the breasts of the mother of many children? Has it too the old, ever-fresh forbearance and impartiality? Does it look with the same love on the last-born and on those hardening toward stature, and on the errant, and on those who disdain all strength of ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... calligraphy. But learning accidentally that the scroll had been pawned to the merchant from whom he had obtained it, he instituted inquiries as to its owner, and ultimately restored the scroll to him with the addition of five gold ryo. The owner was a knight-errant (ronin) named Imagawa Motome, who thereafter entered Masamune's service and ultimately rose to be a general of infantry (ashigaru). The sympathy which taught Masamune to estimate the pain with which the owner ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... know, have always been The haunt of fairies, good or grim; There the knight-errant hasted him; There Bottom found King Oberon's Queen; The Enchanted Castle always stood Deep in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various

... host became tired of his dumb visitor, and leaning on his axe he said, "Look here, Sis, what have you come for? What's your errant? Do you want apples? Or cider? Or what? Speak out, or GIT out, ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... "Dear Knight Errant," he read, in the same desperate handwriting. "Do you remember once years ago coming to the rescue of a lady in distress who was chased by a bull? The lady has never forgotten it. Will you do the same again for the same lady to-day, and earn her undying gratitude? ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... American General Headquarters. The French attitude towards the war is utterly personal; it is bayonet to bayonet. It depends on the unflinching courage of every individual French man and woman. The English attitude is that of the knight-errant, seeking high adventures and welcoming death in a noble cause. But the German attitude disregards the individual and knows nothing of gallantry. It lacks utterly the spiritual elation which made ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... two friars in the camp was not a matter of much note, for in these holy wars the Church militant continually mingled in the affray, and helmet and cowl were always seen together; but it was soon discovered that these worthy saints-errant were from a far country and on a mission of ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... thing has received its peculiar impress: the delicately blown breath of the first cold. The stubbles straggle wanly sunwards, and the falling leaves rustle to the earth, with a sound as of errant silkworms. ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun

... the days of chivalry, the two knights-errant told each other their names and histories. The stranger, whose name was Raoul, was a young man of considerable property. His parents, living in Poitou, sent him to finish his education and polish his manners by frequenting ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various

... which the battle had taken place. Nor was he less surprised to see Richard surrounded by so many silvan attendants, the outlaws, as they seemed to be, of the forest, and a perilous retinue therefore for a prince. He hesitated whether to address the King as the Black Knight-errant, or in what other manner to demean himself towards ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... the red head lovingly as it leant against the motherly bosom upon which had so often rested errant ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... on her one foot with as much dignity as possible, and then recognizing me as the person who picked up the contents of aunt Celia's bag, she said, dimpling in the most distracting manner (that's another thing there ought to be a law against), "Thank you again; you seem to be a sort of knight-errant!" ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... Franciscans and of the Jesuits? Of the first he had nothing more to say than that he was 'at first only a well-minded but weak enthusiast, afterwards a mere hypocrite and impostor;' of the other he spoke with a certain compassion as 'that errant, shatter-brained, visionary fanatic.'[609] And the Methodist, he thought, had a somewhat ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... a quiet spot in the wood, and lived in a camp of his own making, where he read tales of war and knights-errant, and in his enthusiasm fought imaginary enemies. At last he could bear dreaming no longer, and started off again to roam the world in ...
— The Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith • E. Boyd Smith

... Cordilleras the natives entertain a deadly hatred for whites, and attack all who endeavour to penetrate into the forest. Don't be too rash, lad. Remember that it will not add to your lady-love's happiness to learn that you have been massacred in your attempt to carry out your knight-errant adventure, and if you are careless about your own life, don't forget that its loss will probably entail the loss of your brother's also. Dangers, of course, you must meet and face, but remember that prudence is a ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty

... the paper the names in a brief item arrested his errant glance. It disclosed that Mr. Percival Bines had left New York the day before with a party of guests on his special car, to shoot quail in North Carolina. Mr. Milbrey glanced at the two shells of the orange which the ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... Winn had been so nice to her, particularly as he hadn't appeared at all a friendly kind of person; but she became more and more convinced that Winn was a knight errant in disguise and had been sent by heaven to ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome

... vanish along with the bonnet rouge and the jargon of the Terror. His bent had ever been for the material and practical: and now that faith in the Jacobinical creed was vanishing, it was more than ever desirable to grapple that errant balloon to substantial facts. Evidently, the Revolution must now trust to the clinging of the peasant proprietors to the recently confiscated lands of the Church and of the emigrant nobles. If all else was vain and transitory, here surely was a solid basis of ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... Happily, the musicians errant still strum their mandoline as you dine. The old trattoria in the Toledo is as good as ever, as bright, as comfortable. I have found my old corner in one of the little rooms, and something of the old gusto for zuppa di vongole. The ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing

... (perhaps cramped) than developed: but genius was present, without a doubt, under whatsoever artificial trappings; and Ben Jonson spoke but truth when he said, 'My son Cartwright writes all like a man.' It is impossible to open a page of 'The Lady Errant,' 'The Royal Slave,' 'The Ordinary,' or 'Love's Convert,' without feeling at once that we have to do with a man of a very different stamp from any (Massinger perhaps alone excepted) who was writing between 1630 and 1640. The specific gravity of ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... going to engage a couple of rooms for some errant members of the family," said Elinor. "May we give you ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... "The Will will do anything that can be done in this world. And no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities will make a two-legged creature a Man without it." Ik Marvel truly says: "Resolve is what makes a man manifest; not puny resolve, not crude determinations, not errant purpose—but that strong and indefatigable Will which treads down difficulties and danger, as a boy treads down the heaving frost-lands of winter; which kindles his eye and brain with a proud pulse-beat toward the ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... the finishing room. It was said he had a wife or two. He was forty-six, good-looking in a dissolute sort of way, possessing the charm of the wanderer, generous with his money. It was known that Tessie's barbs were permitted to prick him without retaliation because Tessie herself appealed to his errant fancy. ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... Patrick's down went, Like two arrand Deans, two Deans errant I meant; So that Christmas appears at Bellcampe like a Lent, Gives the gamesters of both houses great discontent. Our parsons agree here, as those did at Trent, Dan's forehead has got a most damnable dent, Besides a large hole in his Michaelmas rent. But your fancy on rhyming ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... become a redresser of grievances; there only wanted a lady in the way to be a knight-errant in form. This defect was soon supplied; I presently had two. I frequently went to see my father at Nion, a small city in the Vaudois country, where he was now settled. Being universally respected, the affection entertained for him extended ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... lives of the domestic staff intolerable by insisting upon search for the missing key being made in the most unlikely and inaccessible places, although in his own mind he was convinced that it had been stolen by the errant Japanese. ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins

... off the galling yoke before it be rivetted on them; they will be drove to it, and who can blame them? Who can blame a galley-slave for making his escape?—Britain will miscarry in her vile projects, her knight errant, her Don Quixote schemes in America: America will resist; they are not easily to be subdued (nay, 'tis impossible); Britain will find it a harder task than to conquer France and Spain united, and will cost 'em more blood and ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock

... sculptor; his high forehead, overhanging brows, aquiline nose, broad flat chin, and protruding cheek bones, gave singularly bold relief to his countenance. Such a face would, with advancing age, become too bony, as fleshless as that of a knight errant. But at this stage of youth, with chin and cheek lightly covered with soft down, its latent harshness was attenuated by the charming softness of certain contours which had remained vague and childlike. ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... field;— False glare of glory, what hast thou to yield? How long, deluding phantom, wilt thou blind, Mislead, debase, unhumanize mankind? Bid the bold youth, his headlong sword who draws, Heed not the object, nor inquire the cause; But seek adventuring, like an errant knight, Wars not his own, gratuitous in fight, Greet the gored field, then plunging thro the fire, Mow down his men, with stupid pride expire, Shed from his closing eyes the finish'd flame, And ask, for all his crimes, a deathless name? And when shall solid glory, pure and bright, Alone inspire us, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... you please," cried Lord de Winter, "but don't try to bite, for I warn you that it would be to your disadvantage. There are here no procurators who regulate successions beforehand. There is no knight-errant to come and seek a quarrel with me on account of the fair lady I detain a prisoner; but I have judges quite ready who will quickly dispose of a woman so shameless as to glide, a bigamist, into the ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... girl! How that proves what I have maintained! The birth of the little one will bring the errant father to his senses. The tiny hands will unite its parents as if they were the hands of a priest drawing them together. That child is the divine ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... Margaret was not one of those fair and fanciful creations, endowed with such exquisite sensibilities as to perceive and return the admiration of a young knight-errant with whom she had been associated by any romantic circumstance. Nor was her disposition of that impulsive kind which will permit the impression of a moment to overthrow the prejudices of years. But to her joy and surprise, she found that, far from rejoicing at Gilbert's ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... side of it and the gardens of the station bungalows stretching back into clusters of crisp shadows. It was an exquisite February night, very still. Nothing seemed abroad but two or three pariah dogs, upon vague and errant business, and the Executive Engineer going swiftly home from the club on his bicycle. Even the little shops of the bazaar were dark and empty; only here and there a light showed barred behind the carved balconies of the upper ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... Just choose one yourself," said Aunt Charlotte, as she dived after an errant ball of worsted. "What day will suit ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... You accept Maurice and Jean as your knights-errant? I am delighted with the arrangement, and I hope that Mlle. Frahender will raise ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... in a roar fit to split the air as the hero of the day was recognized. And the Dalesmen gave a pace forward spontaneously as the gray knight-errant stole across the green. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... Brenn's cottage, by a sleepy, shady street he had never been down before. Halfway along it was an open-air eating place of some kind, with tables placed about under the trees. There seemed to be no customers at the moment but he stopped, anyway, to take a closer look for errant guards. ...
— The Helpful Hand of God • Tom Godwin

... occupations of a deputy-errant, naturally include an introduction to the female prisoners; and Tallien's presence afforded Mad. de Fontenay an occasion of pleading her cause with all the success which such a pleader might, in other times, be supposed to obtain from a judge of Tallien's age. The effect ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... afterward become the mighty river; like the infant, airy, volatile, and beautiful—sparkling as the dimpled face of innocence—a faithful reflex of the lights and shadows of existence; and revealing, through the limpid wave, the golden sands which lie beneath. Anon, the errant channels are united in one current—life assumes a purpose, a direction—but the waters are yet pure, and mirror on their face the thousand forms and flashing colors of Creation's beauty—as happy boyhood, rapidly perceptive ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... If you require a more exact division of these ordinary diseases which are incident to men, I refer you to physicians; [889]they will tell you of acute and chronic, first and secondary, lethals, salutares, errant, fixed, simple, compound, connexed, or consequent, belonging to parts or the whole, in habit, or in disposition, &c. My division at this time (as most befitting my purpose) shall be into those of the body and mind. For them of the body, a ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... these poor wandering souls, who have said in their hearts that there is no God, to a saving faith in Him and in the blood of Christ." I expected that some resentment would be displayed when the wandering souls found themselves treated like errant sheep, but to my surprise they listened with perfect silence; and when he had said "Amen," there were great clappings of hands, and cries of "Bravo." They evidently considered the prayer merely as an elocutionary show-piece. The preacher was much disconcerted, ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford

... Pedro de Margarit, the strategist, respectively represented the religious and military powers; there was Roldan, another insubordinate, the first alcalde of the Espanola; there were Alonzo de Ojeda and Guevara, true knights-errant, who were soon to distinguish themselves: the first by the capture of the chief Caonabo, the second by his romantic love-affair with Higuemota, the daughter of the chiefess Anacaona. There was Adrian Mojica, destined shortly to be hanged on the ramparts of Fort Concepcion by order of the Viceroy. ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk



Words linked to "Errant" :   err, fallible, knight-errant



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