arrant

• arraunt (obsolete)

Alteration of errant. Originally meaning wandering, the term came to be an intensifier due to its use as an epithet, e.g. in the phrases "arrant thieves" and "arrant knaves" (i.e., wandering bandits).[1]

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈæɹənt/
• (Mary–marry–merry merger) IPA^(key): /ˈɛɹənt/
• Homophone: errant (in accents with the Mary–marry–merry merger)

arrant (comparative arranter, superlative arrantest)

1. Utter; complete (with a negative sense).

   arrant nonsense! [1708][2]

   • 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Symptomes of Iealousie, Fear, Sorrow, Suspition, Strange Actions, Gestures, Outrages, Locking Up, Oathes, Trials, Lawes, &c.”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford: Printed by Iohn Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 216894069; The Anatomy of Melancholy. […], 5th corrected and augmented edition, Oxford: Printed [by Robert Young, Miles Flesher, and Leonard Lichfield and William Turner] for Henry Cripps, 1638, OCLC 932915040, partition 3, section 3, member 2, subsection 1, page 610:

     He cals her on a ſudden, all to naught; ſhe is a ſtrumpet, a light huswife, a bitch, an arrant whore.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. In Six Volumes, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: Printed by A[ndrew] Millar, […], OCLC 928184292:

     He was prudent and industrious, and so good a husbandman, that he might have led a very easy and comfortable life, had not an arrant vixen of a wife soured his domestic quiet.

   • 1908, Walter Frederic Adeney, The Greek and Eastern churches, page 319:

     Here was the first ecclesiastic in the Greek Church professing the most thorough-going Protestant tenets, even echoing arrant Calvinism!

2. Obsolete form of errant.
   • circa 1600, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, scene 1:

     We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us.

Particularly used in the phrase “arrant knaves”, quoting Hamlet, and “arrant nonsense”.[3]

Some dictionaries consider arrant simply an alternative form of errant, but in usage they have long since split.

The word has long been considered archaic, may be confused with errant, and is used primarily in clichés, on which basis some recommend against using it.

• “arrant/errant”, Common Errors in English Usage, Paul Brians
• On Language: Arrant Nonsense, William Safire, January 22, 2006, New York Times
• Merriam–Webster’s dictionary of English usage, 1995, “errant, arrant”, pp. 406–407