human error

American  

[hyoo-muhn er-er] / ˈhyu mən ˈɛr ər /

noun

human errors plural

1. a mistake made by a human worker or the propensity of humans to make such mistakes, as opposed to the failure of mechanical or electronic systems or devices.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• human-error
  adjective

Inflected Forms

noun

• human errors
  plural

Example Sentences

“I like the challenge system because you still have the human error element to the game,” Smith said.

From Los Angeles Times • May 29, 2026

"It is an inherent feature of screening programmes that false negative results will occur and some of these will be attributable to human error," he said.

From BBC • May 14, 2026

There was no fraud, just human error — which would soon be publicly confirmed through a hand count of the county’s ballots.

From Salon • Apr. 14, 2026

Anthropic accidentally released part of the internal source code for its AI-powered coding assistant Claude Code due to "human error," the company said Tuesday.

From Barron's • Apr. 1, 2026

“This is where human error creeps in,” Beryl says.

From "The Bletchley Riddle" by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin