error message

British

noun

a message displayed on a visual display unit, printout, etc, indicating that an incorrect instruction has been given to the computer

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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See Examples For:

error message

Posting the link on Facebook now triggers an error message saying: “Posts that look like spam according to our Community Guidelines are blocked on Facebook and can’t be edited.”

From Slate ● Jan. 28, 2026

Then, she got an error message notifying her that her answer wasn’t saved.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 28, 2025

A Salon search for usaid.gov on the same day resulted in a “can’t find server” error message.

From Salon ● Feb. 4, 2025

The Morrisons website also appears to be down, with a "502 bad gateway" error message on some pages.

From BBC ● Dec. 23, 2024

Sure enough, an error message pops up, telling me that the file no longer exists.

From "Warcross" by Marie Lu

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023