arrant
/ˈæɹ(ə)nt/
"arrant" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“arrant” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Complete; downright; utter.
Corpus desk
Index EN-arrant · arrant · English
arrant · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "A" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | arrant |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈæɹ(ə)nt/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “arrant” in English
Rare enough to double-check
arrant is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈæɹ(ə)nt/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for arrant, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: A variant of errant, from Middle English erraunt [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman erraunt, from Old French errant, the present participle of errer (“to walk (to); to wander (to); (figuratively) to travel, voyage”), and then: * from Vulgar Latin iterō (c… The correct English form is arrant, spelled A-R-R-A-N-T.
Definition
- 1Complete; downright; utter.
- 2Very bad; despicable.
- 3Obsolete form of errant (“roving around; wandering”).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how arrant appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
an arrant knave arrant nonsense
And if any manner of perſon attempted to moue the King to infringe any parte of thys ordynaunce, and that being knowne, for the firſt time, he ſhould be depriued of his goodes and poſſeſſions, and for the ſecond time, to be drawen thorough the Citie, and so put to execution as an arrant traytor.
Etymology
A variant of errant, from Middle English erraunt [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman erraunt, from Old French errant, the present participle of errer (“to walk (to); to wander (to); (figuratively) to travel, voyage”), and then: * from Vulgar Latin iterō (compare Late Latin itinerō, itineror (“to travel, voyage”)), from Latin iter (“a route (including a journey, trip; a course; a path; a road)”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ey- (“to go”); and * from Latin errāns (“straying, errant; wandering”), the present active participle of errō (“to rove, wander; to get lost, go astray; to err, wander from the truth”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ers- (“to flow”). The original sense was sense 3 (“roving around, wandering”). Due to the word being used to describe disreputable persons who wandered about (for example, arrant knave and arrant thief), it came to be used as an intensifier (sense 1: “complete; downright; utter”) and to have a negative meaning (sense 2: “very bad; despicable”).
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.