correction

American  

[kuh-rek-shuhn] / kəˈrɛk ʃən /

noun

• corrections
  plural

1. something that is substituted or proposed for what is wrong or inaccurate; emendation.

2. the act of correcting.

3. punishment intended to reform, improve, or rehabilitate; chastisement; reproof.

4. Usually corrections. the various methods, as incarceration, parole, and probation, by which society deals with convicted offenders.

5. a quantity applied or other adjustment made in order to increase accuracy, as in the use of an instrument or the solution of a problem.

   A five degree correction will put the ship on course.

6. a reversal of the trend of stock prices, especially temporarily, as after a sharp advance or decline in the previous trading sessions.

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correction British  

/ kəˈrɛkʃən /

noun

1. the act or process of correcting

2. something offered or substituted for an error; an improvement

3. the act or process of punishing; reproof

4. a number or quantity added to or subtracted from a scientific or mathematical calculation or observation to increase its accuracy

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Usage

What is a correction? A correction is something substituted for something that is wrong or inaccurate, such as when a newspaper issues a correction to a story it got wrong. A correction is also an adjustment or addition to something to make it more accurate, as when you make a steering correction while driving to ensure you are in the center of your lane. A correction is also a punishment that is meant to help you reform or improve. This is the type of correction connected with prisons, also called correctional facilities. Example: We are applying a correction to the story after it came out that one of the sources was lying.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• noncorrection
  noun
• precorrection
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• corrections
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of correction

1300–50; Middle English correccio ( u ) n (< Anglo-French ) < Latin corrēctiōn- (stem of corrēctiō ) a setting straight. See correct, -ion

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Explanation

When you fix a mistake, you make a correction, a change that rights a wrong. When you correct a misspelled word, you’ve made a correction. Well done! Correction also applies to punishment, which is another way to right a wrong. A correction is an improvement or a revision when there's something that needs to be fixed. Newspapers issue corrections for previously printed errors, and a poorly written law might get the correction it needs after voters choose to amend it. Sometimes correction is also used to mean "punishment or discipline," and a correction or correctional facility is another word for jail. Correction can also mean "a drop in the value of a stock that was artificially high."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

correction corrections

The correction, when it comes, travels in the opposite direction and arrives nowhere.

From Salon ● Oct. 31, 2026

"We cannot just plod on to 2030 without a course correction; nature is critical to all life on Earth: to our economies, to our wellbeing," she added.

From BBC ● Oct. 31, 2026

A correction was probably inevitable given the waves of capital that have been pouring into any company claiming to have an AI angle.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026

The idea is to avoid being held hostage by a major market correction or, worse, a recession by being forced to withdraw money during a down market.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 28, 2026

But we had also learned that many D.A.’s saw attacks on correction officers as low-priority prosecutions, since the criminals were already in jail.

From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover

Community Notes, which allows users to contribute notes that add context or corrections to posts, was introduced by X in late 2022 and the same model is increasingly being adopted by other tech platforms.

From Barron's ● Oct. 21, 2026

“New Stanford” comes with a trio of experts — host Alison Wood Brooks, a behavioral psychologist; “federal corrections professional” Michael Cantrell; and journalist Trymaine Lee — whose contribution amounts to a sort of color commentary.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 21, 2026

“It was impossible to get. Our video store had only one copy, and there was a waiting list. It took us about three or four months,” says Phoenix-area corrections officer Steve Taris.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 18, 2026

The BBC's Quentin Sommerville joined corrections officers at Cook County as they prepared for an early morning raid on the jail's high security D block.

From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2026

He’d been a dairy farmer for years, he said, before switching to corrections thirteen years earlier, succumbing to economic inevitability.

From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover

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