etymology - aberrant vs errant


Aberrant seems a subset of the word errant.




  1. Thus, what's the effect of the Latin prefix 'ab-'? What are the similarities and differences?




  2. What's this phenomenon called, in which a prefix or suffix affects nothing?




  3. What are some more accurate words that characterise two words, X and Y, for which all of X's defnitions are contained in Y's, than 'subset'?





Answer





  1. They're more or less synonyms. Aberrant is more used to describe deviation from moral/societal norms. Errant has a stronger association with "error", so can be used for people prone to make errors. ("Aberrant", "errant", and "error" all come from the same Latin verb "erro", meaning "to wander".)




  2. Redundancy?




  3. You may be looking for hypernym and its counterpart hyponym.




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