error

American  

[er-er] / ˈɛr ər /

noun

1. a deviation from accuracy or correctness; a mistake, as in action or speech.

   His speech contained several factual errors.

   Synonyms:

   oversight, slip, blunder

2. belief in something untrue; the holding of mistaken opinions.

3. the condition of believing what is not true.

   in error about the date.

4. a moral offense; wrongdoing; sin.

   Synonyms:

   misdeed, trespass, transgression, fault

5. Baseball. a misplay that enables a base runner to reach base safely or advance a base, or a batter to have a turn at bat prolonged, as the dropping of a ball batted in the air, the fumbling of a batted or thrown ball, or the throwing of a wild ball, but not including a passed ball or wild pitch.

6. Mathematics. the difference between the observed or approximately determined value and the true value of a quantity.

7. Law.

   1. a mistake in a matter of fact or law in a case tried in a court of record.

   2. writ of error.

8. Philately. a stamp distinguished by an error or errors in design, engraving, selection of inks, or setting up of the printing apparatus.

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error British  

/ ˈɛrə /

noun

1. a mistake or inaccuracy, as in action or speech

   a typing error

2. an incorrect belief or wrong judgment

3. the condition of deviating from accuracy or correctness, as in belief, action, or speech

   he was in error about the train times

4. deviation from a moral standard; wrongdoing

   he saw the error of his ways

5. maths statistics a measure of the difference between some quantity and an approximation to or estimate of it, often expressed as a percentage

   an error of 5%

6. statistics See type I error type II error

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error Idioms  

1. see comedy of errors; trial and error.

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Related Words

See mistake.

Other Word Forms

• error-free
  adjective
• errorless
  adjective
• errorlessly
  adverb

Etymology

Origin of error

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English errour, from Latin errōr-, stem of error, equivalent to err + -or ¹

Explanation

"I'm sorry, sir, there's been some sort of error in the kitchen," is what a restaurant waiter might say to a patron who ordered the fish but was mistakenly served a plateful of worms instead. Simply put, an error is a mistake. However, that mistake is more likely due to a lapse in judgment or skill than to an accident. A plane crash that occurs after the pilot mistakenly presses the "pilot eject" button is said to be caused by "human error." A baseball play in which the pitcher throws the ball to second base instead of first because he was distracted by a pretty girl in the stands is an error — one that might cost his team the game.

Example Sentences

Error detection relies on repeated measurements of stabilizers, which work alongside the data qubits to form the logical qubit.

From Science Daily • Feb. 6, 2026

Error might be the cost of freedom, but freedom is also the only option for correcting error.

From Slate • May 9, 2025

Error correction on classical computers works by copying one bit’s information to additional bits, but that’s a challenge in quantum computers, because the laws of quantum mechanics forbid quantum states from being “cloned.”

From Science Magazine • Dec. 20, 2023

South Korea only entered the BL game as recently as 2020, and "Semantic Error" is one of the country's most acclaimed and beloved titles so far.

From Salon • Oct. 1, 2023

Her thesis, “On Estimates of Error in Numerical Integration,” was included in the 1954 proceedings of the Arkansas Academy of Science.

From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly

Related Words

• blunder
• failure
• fault
• flaw
• glitch
• inaccuracy
• lapse
• miscalculation
• miscue
• misdeed
• mismanagement
• misstep
• misunderstanding
• offense
• omission
• sin
• transgression
• wrongdoing