Meaning & use
inerrant
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Meanings
adjectivenot comparableformal
Containing no mistakes at all; completely accurate and impossible to get wrong.
Grammar: Used before a noun or after be: an inerrant text, the book is inerrant.
Patterns
- an inerrant text
- be inerrant in something
Some believers hold that the scripture is inerrant in every detail.
No scientist treats any single study as inerrant.
The council declared the translation inerrant.
adjectivenot comparablereligion
Of a person or source, never mistaken in what it teaches or reports.
Grammar: Often used about authority, rarely about everyday facts.
Patterns
- an inerrant teacher
- an inerrant guide
He treated his professor as inerrant and never questioned her.
No newspaper is inerrant, however careful its editors.
The church does not claim that every leader is inerrant.
Common combinations
- inerrant scripture
- The group teaches that inerrant scripture guides daily life.
- believe something is inerrant
- Few historians believe any single source is inerrant.
- inerrant in every detail
- The author claimed the report was inerrant in every detail.
- inerrant authority
- They gave the text inerrant authority.
Synonyms and how they differ
- infallible
- Infallible says someone or something cannot fail or be wrong in judgment, while inerrant says a text or statement happens to contain no errors.
- flawless
- Flawless is everyday language for a perfect performance and does not imply religious or doctrinal truth.
- faultless
- Faultless means without any fault or blame, and it is mostly used for behavior rather than texts.
- unerring
- Unerring describes accuracy of aim or judgment, as in an unerring instinct, and rarely describes a text.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: inerrant or infallible? inerrant or errant?
inerrant vs infallible
Infallible describes a source that cannot be wrong or cannot fail, and it is often used for a person such as a teacher, whereas inerrant is mostly applied to a book.
inerrant vs errant
Errant means wandering or mistaken, and it is not the opposite of inerrant in everyday use.
Practice
Which statement best illustrates the word 'inerrant'?
Choose one answer.
Inerrant means containing no errors, which the author claims for the manual. The first and third sentences describe mistakes, and the last is about price.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “inerrant”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.