so i’ve been using and seeing the word egrarious as essentially a synonym fo agregious for some time now and was called on it last night. well i smugly turned to a number of online dictionarys to defend myself only to discover that none of them list such as word.
at the sae time, i did a google search and found about 4 pages of results forthe word egrarious so iknow i’m not making it up.
so whats the deal? are we all just mispronouncing and misusing the word agregious, or is there in fact a word egrarious thats just somehow not in the dictionary?
my apologies, for this embarrasing compound error. i meant egregious vs egrarious
and i am aware that the one i have been using egrarious has no dictionary listings, i just find it odd that it does have so many google hits (ABC news among them). i know i didn’t make the word up, i’m just wondering who did?
A Google search won’t help you sort out a problem like this unless it takes you to dictionary sites. There are any number of non-existent or misspelled words that are so commonly used a search is guaranteed to find plenty of examples, but that doesn’t stop them being errors.
Dictionary.com has no record of egrarious, and it suggests that agregious is an error for egregious. Merriam-Webster seems to be unavailable at the moment, but I’m sure it would tell you a similar story.
There are words that haven’t made it into the dictionary, though. Paper dictionaries are too expensive to reprint with every passing fad of a slang word that is used very briefly and never again. Most dictionary compilers have rules about how widely and frequently a word needs to appear in print before they add it to their books.
I’ve certainly heard (and used) egregious, but not agregious or egrarious.
no i was actually using it to mean the same thing as the dictionary definitions of egregious. and i didn’t make it up, as i said i found a number of stes where its used in much the same way.
all i am sayng is I didn’t make up the word or the usage, as i’ve heard it a lot. i concede that its incorerect, i’m just pissed that it seems to be such a widespread error that i’d heard it enough times to believe it. i’m usually- this thread not withstanding- fairly anal about misuses and imaginary words.
Can you please link to such a site? I’m having a hard time believing that this isn’t a simple misunderstanding on your part, particularly when considering the mistakes in the OP.
was really just asking if anybody knew where this came from. i’m inclined to agree with the theory that its some conflation of gregarious and egregious. but its still weird.
