What's the difference between capricious and erratic?

Capricious


Definition:

  • (a.) Governed or characterized by caprice; apt to change suddenly; freakish; whimsical; changeable.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The production of vocal sound is not capricious, it follows certain laws many of which are not known.
  • (2) Yet beneath the facade of implacable command was a moody, capricious man with a strained marriage: while he was in India, his wife Edwina had allegedly conducted an affair with the Indian politician Nehru.
  • (3) In one undisclosed court document in Kenya, seen by the Guardian, BAT’s lawyers demand the country’s high court “quash in its entirety” a package of anti-smoking regulations and rails against what it calls a “capricious” tax plan.
  • (4) The individual number of pathological scores showed a decrease already within the first treatment week and a further decrease by the end of the trial, especially for the items of capriciousness, obstinacy, irritability and restlessness.
  • (5) The rains in Katine sub-county in rural Uganda have been capricious all year, beyond the control even of such a faithful community as this.
  • (6) Degree of compliance with dietary advice, especially of the pregnant woman with a capricious appetite, is understandably difficult to assess.
  • (7) Opportunistic infections are increasingly becoming a problem in cancer patients amongst whom infection with Nocardia species is particularly difficult to detect due to the capricious natural history of the disease.
  • (8) Ashley can be capricious but unless he has a dramatic change of heart, the manager will have the chance to start winning back hearts and minds against Hull.
  • (9) Gambians had come to expect surprises from their leader – cruel, violent and capricious in power – just not ones that set the whole nation dancing in the streets and sent shockwaves of joy and inspiration across the continent.
  • (10) She has played middling singers and capricious interns, dancers, dreamers and damsels in distress, and she has done so with such ease and abandon that the actor and her alter egos have a tendency to blur.
  • (11) Antimicrobial susceptibility testing is somewhat capricious in part from the marked effect of inoculum size in some circumstances.
  • (12) That needs to be taken into consideration.” Philipp Mißfelder, foreign policy spokesman for the Christian Democratic Union, said: “I think deportations and extraditions to countries that have the death penalty are very problematic.” The Berlin judiciary should under no circumstances allow itself to become a willing tool of Cairo's capricious regime Franziska Brantner, Green party Egypt accuses both Qatar and al-Jazeera of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, which was branded a terrorist organisation after the military deposed the president, Mohamed Morsi, in 2013.
  • (13) Detailed, within-subjects Golgi analyses of regional differences in cerebellar Purkinje cell dendritic development are impractical due to the capriciousness of that technique.
  • (14) HBFP technique is capricious and the differentiation step should be controlled stringently; ethanolic picric acid, therefore, is recommended as a differentiation fluid.
  • (15) And in part, as Murray staggered about indiscriminately high-fiving at the end, there was a sense that this has also been something of a rather mannered love story, at its centre Murray and that prim, capricious, but in the end compliantly adorable Wimbledon crowd.
  • (16) With De Jong not properly match fit, Vito Mannone remained under-employed but Sunderland's goalkeeper did save a capriciously curving shot from Tioté quite brilliantly.
  • (17) Having bowled out England in their second innings for 123, West Indies were required to make 192 to win the match and square the series and the expectation was that it would be a tough call for them, given the capricious nature of the pitch on the first two days, not least a second day in which 18 wickets fell, which is unprecedented for a Test match in Barbados.
  • (18) This bilingual city in the eastern “Maritime” Canadian province of New Brunswick had appeared the ideal venue for these teams but with dark rain clouds hovering in the humid skies and a capricious wind blowing, the residents of the French speaking suburb of Dieppe and English speaking Riverview had evidently decided to stay indoors.
  • (19) Zwiebel argues the bill would invite capricious litigation "that could be extremely harmful to some of the most important institutions in our community".
  • (20) However, the standards and essentials that are ultimately adopted must be applied uniformly and fairly and not in an arbitrary or capricious manner.

Erratic


Definition:

  • (a.) Having no certain course; roving about without a fixed destination; wandering; moving; -- hence, applied to the planets as distinguished from the fixed stars.
  • (a.) Deviating from a wise of the common course in opinion or conduct; eccentric; strange; queer; as, erratic conduct.
  • (a.) Irregular; changeable.
  • (n.) One who deviates from common and accepted opinions; one who is eccentric or preserve in his intellectual character.
  • (n.) A rogue.
  • (n.) Any stone or material that has been borne away from its original site by natural agencies; esp., a large block or fragment of rock; a bowlder.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This erratic course renders difficult assessment of the efficacy of methods of treatment.
  • (2) As trigger sensitivity was decreased within its usual range, a marked and progressive ventilator response delay occurred which was associated with erratic changes in functional residual capacity as well as dyspnea and tachypnea.
  • (3) Obstacles to successful treatment include an erratic schedule, mistrust of authority, and uncooperative or aggressive behavior.
  • (4) In the wake of a second fatal police shooting in the St Louis area after the death of Michael Brown , concerned citizens are asking why officers had to kill Kajieme Powell, a 25-year-old man who was holding a knife and “behaving erratically.” They want to know why officers don’t shoot someone like Powell in the leg or the arm, rather than aiming for vital organs, or why they don’t just use a less lethal weapon, like a Taser.
  • (5) We attribute the persistence of infection in our patient to erratic usage of antituberculous drugs.
  • (6) Coronary blood flow and coronary perfusion pressure were significantly correlated during the administration of lignocaine; bupivacaine had erratic effects on coronary blood flow and no correlation between coronary blood flow and coronary perfusion pressure was seen.
  • (7) Flynn’s subsequent penchant for inflammatory, erratic and even bigoted statements left few, particularly in security circles, willing to defend him.
  • (8) The president of the European parliament, Martin Schulz, reflecting the deep anger felt in Brussels at the erratic negotiating tactics adopted by Tsipras and Varoufakis, said Greek voters should blame Tsipras for bringing the country to its knees.
  • (9) Cells in optimal (5 x 10(-9) M) but uniform concentrations of N-formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine (FMLP) polarized well and showed a 'persistent random walk' type of locomotion, whereas in supraoptimal concentrations (10(-7) M), the cells took erratic paths and polarized poorly, suggesting that monocytes cannot develop an anteroposterior polarity if hit by ligand molecules at many points on the cell surface simultaneously.
  • (10) It is perhaps not surprising that self-diagnosis and self-medication are common and follow-up attendance is erratic.
  • (11) As far back as 2008, the Wall Street Journal was running front-page pieces , beginning: "Major banks are contributing to the erratic behaviour of a crucial global lending benchmark".
  • (12) The fact that it failed is related to the atomised society left behind by 40 years of the most brutal and erratic of dictatorships.
  • (13) At lower levels the results were somewhat more erratic due to inaccuracies of the various methods at low concentrations.
  • (14) At any rate, the only sparse range of body expressions, the smallness and preference of night activity of these animals and the erratic occurrence of essential behaviour patterns make the investigations more difficult.
  • (15) It has been encouraged by Trump’s often erratic, unfocused behaviour , and the resulting opportunities and dangers arising from weakened American global leadership.
  • (16) Though absorption of ampicillin from capsules was often erratic, its bioavailability was similar in normal and cirrhotic subjects.
  • (17) Moreover, the emotional climate of adolescence, which requires affiliation with peer groups, and a distancing from authority figures such as doctors and parents, is often associated with a deterioration in drug and dietary compliance and with erratic clinic attendance.
  • (18) I learned that the hard way: when I was younger, I played the part of the erratic, irascible drunk in order to have something to write about.
  • (19) Once well-paid, stable work with decent terms and conditions is gradually being replaced by minimum-wage, erratic jobs.
  • (20) Psychiatric patients may also be at special risk for the development of digitoxicity because of erratic drug taking, electrolyte imbalance or increased autonomic tone.