fallibility
Americannoun
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liability to be deceived or mistaken.
Many leaders fail to grasp that admissions of fallibility and uncertainty are actually signs of strength.
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liability to be inaccurate or false, or to fall short of expectations.
Banks are hoping to get a new card system up and running before the fallibility of the old one becomes public.
Etymology
Origin of fallibility
Explanation
Fallibility is the tendency to be wrong or make mistakes. Your fallibility in guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar means you can't count on getting the number right and winning a prize. Fallibility is a quality that everyone has, since we all make misjudgments from time to time. You might remark on the fallibility of your little brother's plan to row a boat from Connecticut to Florida, especially if there's a hole in the boat and he's not a strong swimmer. The plan, in other words, has too many errors to work well. The Latin root is fallibilis, "liable to err or deceitful."
Vocabulary lists containing fallibility
Grade 9, List 3
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On Liberty
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The Gene
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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.
Yet, “To Share a Stomach” lays down — gingerly, gently — an alternate connective thread, spun from a mutual recognition of fallibility.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
On six separate occasions on that March afternoon, Bucknor had his calls mercilessly reversed by a faceless computer unaffected by bias, poor judgment or the fallibility of human eyesight.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026
“Confessions II” is Madonna’s message of what it means to be an artist, a mother and a woman — someone whose fallibility makes her human.
From Salon ● Jul. 8, 2026
But the steady stream of bad choices emerging from Platner’s record goes beyond what voters might excuse as normal human fallibility.
From Slate ● Jun. 2, 2026
There is another protozoan, called blepharisma, telling a long story about the chanciness and fallibility of complex life.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
