arrant
Americanadjective
-
downright; thorough; unmitigated; notorious.
an arrant fool.
- Synonyms:
- flagrant, confirmed, utter, thoroughgoing
-
wandering; errant.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of arrant
1350–1400; Middle English, variant of errant
Explanation
The word arrant intensifies. An arrant criminal is one heck of a criminal. Arrant nonsense is total nonsense. Do you struggle for adequate superlatives? If so, you might want to add arrant to your arsenal. It can be used to add emphasis to other words, most often negative words. Arrant rudeness is extreme rudeness. Arrant hypocrisy is very hypocritical. An arrant liar is a world-class liar. Arrant has a meaning similar to complete or utter. Like other intensifiers, arrant turns up the volume on another word.
Vocabulary lists containing arrant
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
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Much Ado About Nothing
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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"There's no way he can stay on until October. It's arrant nonsense to think he can. Someone needs to grip this."
From Reuters ● Jul. 7, 2022
Flawed but gifted authors high and low, from Laura Ingalls Wilder to John Muir to Mark Twain, have been lumped together with arrant racists and worse.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2018
On balance, this arrant unhipness is a good thing.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 9, 2015
"Invasion," screamed the headline of the Sydney Daily Telegraph in 2009 at the arrival of another shanty boat from Indonesia, which is arrant nonsense.
From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2011
Was it not a dangerous word, too closely connected to Hobbes and to dubious stories about sympathetic magic told by Digby—someone whom John Evelyn, another early member, could dismiss as an arrant mountebank?
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
