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Erratic vs Irrational - What's the difference?

erratic | irrational |

As adjectives the difference between erratic and irrational

is that erratic is unsteady, random; prone to unexpected changes; not consistent while irrational is not rational; unfounded or nonsensical.

As nouns the difference between erratic and irrational

is that erratic is (geology) a rock moved from one location to another, usually by a glacier while irrational is a real number that can not be expressed as the quotient of two integers, an irrational number.

erratic

English

Alternative forms

* erratick, erraticke, erratique (obsolete)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • unsteady, random; prone to unexpected changes; not consistent
    • Henry has been getting erratic scores on his tests: 40% last week, but 98% this week.
  • Deviating from the common course in opinion or conduct; eccentric; odd.
    • erratic conduct

    Derived terms

    * erratically

    Antonyms

    * consistent

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (geology) A rock moved from one location to another, usually by a glacier.
  • * 2003 , (Bill Bryson), A Short History of Nearly Everything , BCA 2003, p. 372:
    • The term for a displaced boulder is an erratic , but in the nineteenth century the expression seemed to apply more often to the theories than to the rocks.
  • Anything that has erratic characteristics.

    • Anagrams

    *

    irrational

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Not rational; unfounded or nonsensical.
    • an irrational decision
  • * July 18 2012 , Scott Tobias, AV Club The Dark Knight Rises [http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-dark-knight-rises-review-batman,82624/]
    • Where the Joker preys on our fears of random, irrational acts of terror, Bane has an all-consuming, dictatorial agenda that’s more stable and permanent, a New World Order that’s been planned out with the precision of a military coup.
  • (mathematics, arithmetic, number theory, not comparable) Of a real number, that cannot be written as the ratio of two integers.
    • The number π is irrational .

    Antonyms

    * (mathematics) rational

    Hyponyms

    * (mathematics) transcendental

    Derived terms

    * irrational number * irrationality * irrationalize * irrationalization

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A real number that can not be expressed as the quotient of two integers, an irrational number.
  • * 1946 , (Bertrand Russell), History of Western Philosophy , I.24:
    • The square root of 2, which was the first irrational to be discovered, was known to the early Pythagoreans, and ingenious methods of approximating to its value were discovered.