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

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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

But the website kept returning an error message.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 9, 2025

From 1500GMT on Friday, any Apple user in the UK attempting to turn it on has been met with an error message.

From BBC • Feb. 21, 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