Error

How to spell error

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce error

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does error mean?

1. nounA mistake or inaccuracy, especially one that produces a wrong result.

Error in a sentence

• A single typing error delayed the whole invoice.

• The accountant traced the discrepancy to a rounding error.

Where does error come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin error, meaning 'a wandering' or 'a straying', which was formed on the verb errare, literally 'to wander off course' or 'to roam'. The image at its heart is geographical: someone who strays from the right path, and only later did this come to mean straying from the truth or the correct answer. English took the word in through Old French in the 1300s, where it had already softened into the modern sense of a mistake or fault. The same Latin errare still lives inside the everyday verb 'to err', as well as in 'erratic', describing something that wanders unpredictably, and 'errant', the wandering knight. The spelling keeps the double 'r' from errare, and the unstressed ending is the classic trap: it is '-or', not the more common '-er'.

How the word is built

• err (from Latin errare: to wander, stray)
• -or (noun suffix denoting a state or result)