error

Etymology

From Middle English errour, from Anglo-Norman errour, from Old French error, from Latin error (“wandering about”), infinitive of errō (“to wander, to err”). Cognate with Gothic 𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌶𐌴𐌹 (airzei, “error”), Gothic 𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌶𐌾𐌰𐌽 (airzjan, “to lead astray”). More at err.

noun

1. (uncountable) The state, quality, or condition of being wrong.
   Am I in error in marking out the s in the word assistants used in the following manner? … 1913, The Inland printer
2. (countable) A mistake; an accidental wrong action or a false statement not made deliberately.
   Chris Brunt sliced the spot-kick well wide but his error was soon forgotten as Olsson headed home from a corner. October 22, 2011, Sam Sheringham, “Aston Villa 1 - 2 West Brom”, in BBC Sport
   "Well over 400 trains and thousands of passengers from across the South were disrupted by this single error of judgement," said Network Rail's Route Director for Sussex, Katie Frost. December 14 2022, “Network News: HGV driver banned after Coulsdon bridge crash”, in RAIL, number 972, page 7
3. (countable, uncountable) Sin; transgression.
4. (computing, countable) A failure to complete a task, usually involving a premature termination.
5. (statistics, countable) The difference between a measured or calculated value and a true one.
6. (baseball, countable) A play which is scored as having been made incorrectly.
7. (appellate law, uncountable) One or more mistakes in a trial that could be grounds for review of the judgement.
8. Any alteration in the DNA chemical structure occurring during DNA replication, recombination or repairing.

verb

1. (computing) To function improperly due to an error, especially accompanied by error message.
   The web-page took a long time to load and errored out.
   Remove that line of code and the script should stop erroring there.
   This directory errors with a "Permission denied" message.
2. (telecommunications) To show or contain an error or fault.
   The block transmission errored near the start and could not be received.
3. (nonstandard) To err.
   Pixels which are mathematically outside of a triangle, but which are included for anti-aliasing purposes can be generated with colour and depth information outside of the valid range. The ADE should identify these cases and clamp the output to the minimum or maximum value depending on the direction it has errored in. 1993 December, Arie Kaufman, editor, Rendering, Visualization, and Rasterization Hardware, Springer-Verlag New York LLC
   By doing so examiners are erroring in the direction of drawing hypotheses based on greater evidence of reliability and validity. 2000 December, Randy W. Kamphaus, Clinical Assessment of Child And Adolescent Intelligence, Allyn & Bacon
   Error is not just permitted by diversity; it is what permits diversity.... The beetle had “errored” beautifully 2001 November, Daniel D. Dancer, Shards and Circles: Artistic Adventures in Spirit and Ecology, Trafford Publishing
   Many other celebrities errored in the political comments area... 2002 May, Sylvain Beauregard, Passion Celine Dion the Book: The Ultimate Guide for the Fan!, Trafford Publishing