ERROR • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Error

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/ˈɛrər/ Listen

noun

Error n.

1.

A wandering; a roving or irregular course. (Obs.) "The rest of his journey, his error by sea."

2.

A wandering or deviation from the right course or standard; irregularity; mistake; inaccuracy; something made wrong or left wrong; as, an error in writing or in printing; a clerical error.

3.

A departing or deviation from the truth; falsity; false notion; wrong opinion; mistake; misapprehension. "His judgment was often in error, though his candor remained unimpaired."

4.

A moral offense; violation of duty; a sin or transgression; iniquity; fault.

5.

(Math.) The difference between the approximate result and the true result; used particularly in the rule of double position.

6.

(Mensuration)

(a)

The difference between an observed value and the true value of a quantity.

(b)

The difference between the observed value of a quantity and that which is taken or computed to be the true value; sometimes called residual error.

7.

(Law.) A mistake in the proceedings of a court of record in matters of law or of fact.

8.

(Baseball) A fault of a player of the side in the field which results in failure to put out a player on the other side, or gives him an unearned base.

Law of error, or Law of frequency of error (Mensuration), the law which expresses the relation between the magnitude of an error and the frequency with which that error will be committed in making a large number of careful measurements of a quantity.

Probable error. (Mensuration) See under Probable.

Writ of error (Law), an original writ, which lies after judgment in an action at law, in a court of record, to correct some alleged error in the proceedings, or in the judgment of the court.

Synonyms: Mistake; fault; blunder; failure; fallacy; delusion; hallucination; sin. See Blunder.

See images of 'Error'

Etymology of 'Error'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Error" Quotes from Famous Books

... foolish and the unnatural had been taught and worshipped; to those priests and monks who themselves most shamefully violated their teachings. To profess morality was to be a hypocrite; to reprobate others was to be narrow-minded. There was so much error mixed up with truth that truth had to share the discredit of error; so many innocent things had been denounced as sins that sinful ones at length ceased to be reprobated; people had so often found themselves sympathizing ...

— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee

... humours and festivities of his more high-spirited companions. He was not one of those impulsive fellows who shut their eyes and take a header into the midst of a new good-fellowship, only to discover too late their error, and repent ...

— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... the exchange of the profession of baseball for the study of theology as a serious error in judgment, and in this opinion every inning of the game confirmed him. At the bat The Pilot did not shine, but he made up for light hitting by his base-running. He was fleet as a deer, and he knew the game thoroughly. He was keen, eager, intense in play, and before the innings ...

— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor

... as enabling the young to realize history vividly—and, what is still more desirable, requiring an effort of the mind which to read of modern days does not. The details of Millais' Inquisition or of his Huguenot may be in error in spite of all his study and diligence, but they have brought before us for ever the horrors of the auto-da-fe, and the patient, steadfast heroism of the man who can smile aside his wife's endeavour ...

— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... predictions, the other in explaining their failures; which is much the case with the rain-doctors in Africa, who are as ingenious and fortunate in explaining a miss as a hit, as, indeed, they need be, since they must, in case of error, submit to be devoured alive by ants,—insects which in Africa correspond in several respects to editors and critics, particularly the stinging kind. "Und ist man bei der Prophezeiung angestellt," as Heine says; "when a man has a situation in a prophecy-office," a great part ...

— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

Copyright © 2025 Free Translator.org