erré

Erré is the past participle of the French verb errer, which means to wander, roam, or drift. The word comes from Old French erer, itself derived from Latin errare, meaning to wander or stray. In modern French, erré is most often encountered in compound tenses formed with the auxiliary avoir, as in j’ai erré dans les rues toute la nuit.

Grammatical use is straightforward: with avoir as the auxiliary, the participle generally does not change to agree with the subject, and there is typically no preceding direct object to trigger agreement. For example, J’ai erré pendant des heures is standard. Although errer can occasionally take a direct object in more literary or archaic constructions, such usage is uncommon in contemporary French.

Erré can also appear, though rarely, as an adjective meaning “wandering” or “roaming” in literary language, but this adjectival use is uncommon and often superseded by the standard adjective errant or the noun errance when referring to the state of wandering. The noun errance denotes the act or state of wandering or being roving.

In usage, erré is chiefly a literary or formal term and is generally understood as a synonym for wandering within the verbs of movement, rather than a common everyday verb. It should not be confused with the English verb to err, which has a different semantic evolution, meaning to make a mistake.