[f. ERR v. + -ING2.] That errs in senses of the vb.: † wandering, roaming (obs.); deviating from the right or intended course, missing the mark; that is in error, or commits errors in opinion or conduct.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter xiii. 1. Delite of synn egges errand men to ween God noght to be.
c. 1400. Lay Folks Mass-bk., App. v. 394. As an Errynge pylgrym in the seruyse of the myghty and dredful god of loue, how many perylous passages and wayes that I ha passyd by.
1602. Shaks., Ham., I. i. 154. Th’ extrauagant, and erring Spirit, hyes To his Confine.
1623. Whitbourne, Newfoundland, Pref. B 4 b. This Ship was intercepted by an English erring Captaine.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., III. xlii. 319. Danger … may arise to Religion, by the Subjects tolerating of an Heathen, or an Erring Prince [etc.].
1697. Dryden, Æneid, VI. 363/45 (T.).
| And all those erring Paths describ’d so well, | |
| That Theseus conquer’d, and the Monster fell. |
1715–20. Pope, Iliad, V. 24. His sounding spear, Which … spent in empty air its erring force.
1836. J. Gilbert, Chr. Atonem., ii. (1852), 39. Still to erring, wilful man, the way to life is strait.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), I. 173. The erring act which is done without knowledge is done in ignorance.
† b. Erring star = planet. Obs.
c. 1449. Pecock, Repr., V. i. 480. Erring sterris.
1647. H. More, Song of Soul, II. III. III. xv. So doth the Earth one of the erring Seven Wheel round the fixèd sunne.
1697. Dryden, Æneid, I. 232/1044 (J.). Fix’d, and erring Stars, dispose their Influence.
