ERROR

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does error mean? 

• ERROR (noun)
  The noun ERROR has 7 senses:

1. a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention

2. inadvertent incorrectness

3. a misconception resulting from incorrect information

4. (baseball) a failure of a defensive player to make an out when normal play would have sufficed

5. departure from what is ethically acceptable

6. (computer science) the occurrence of an incorrect result produced by a computer

7. part of a statement that is not correct

  Familiarity information: ERROR used as a noun is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ERROR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

error; fault; mistake

Context example:

I could understand his English in spite of his grammatical faults

Hypernyms ("error" is a kind of...):

nonaccomplishment; nonachievement (an act that does not achieve its intended goal)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "error"):

confusion; mix-up (a mistake that results from taking one thing to be another)

renege; revoke (the mistake of not following suit when able to do so)

betise; folly; foolishness; imbecility; stupidity (a stupid mistake)

balls-up; ballup; cockup; mess-up (something badly botched or muddled)

bloomer; blooper; blunder; boner; boo-boo; botch; bungle; flub; foul-up; fuckup; pratfall (an embarrassing mistake)

omission; skip (a mistake resulting from neglect)

lapse; oversight (a mistake resulting from inattention)

offside ((sport) the mistake of occupying an illegal position on the playing field (in football, soccer, ice hockey, field hockey, etc.))

miscue; parapraxis; slip; slip-up (a minor inadvertent mistake usually observed in speech or writing or in small accidents or memory lapses etc.)

distortion (the mistake of misrepresenting the facts)

miscalculation; misestimation; misreckoning (a mistake in calculating)

incursion (the mistake of incurring liability or blame)

blot; smear; smirch; spot; stain (an act that brings discredit to the person who does it)

Derivation:

err (to make a mistake or be incorrect)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Inadvertent incorrectness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

erroneousness; error

Hypernyms ("error" is a kind of...):

incorrectness; wrongness (the quality of not conforming to fact or truth)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "error"):

deviation (the error of a compass due to local magnetic disturbances)

Derivation:

err (to make a mistake or be incorrect)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A misconception resulting from incorrect information

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

erroneous belief; error

Hypernyms ("error" is a kind of...):

misconception (an incorrect conception)

Sense 4

Meaning:

(baseball) a failure of a defensive player to make an out when normal play would have sufficed

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

error; misplay

Hypernyms ("error" is a kind of...):

failure (an act that fails)

Domain category:

ball; baseball; baseball game (a ball game played with a bat and ball between two teams of nine players; teams take turns at bat trying to score runs)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Departure from what is ethically acceptable

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

error; wrongdoing

Hypernyms ("error" is a kind of...):

evil; evilness (the quality of being morally wrong in principle or practice)

Sense 6

Meaning:

(computer science) the occurrence of an incorrect result produced by a computer

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

computer error; error

Hypernyms ("error" is a kind of...):

happening; natural event; occurrence; occurrent (an event that happens)

Domain category:

computer science; computing (the branch of engineering science that studies (with the aid of computers) computable processes and structures)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "error"):

hardware error (error resulting from a malfunction of some physical component of the computer)

programming error; software error (error resulting from bad code in some program involved in producing the erroneous result)

algorithm error (error resulting from the choice of the wrong algorithm or method for achieving the intended result)

Sense 7

Meaning:

Part of a statement that is not correct

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

error; mistake

Context example:

the book was full of errors

Hypernyms ("error" is a kind of...):

misstatement (a statement that contains a mistake)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "error"):

corrigendum (a printer's error; to be corrected)

erratum; literal; literal error; misprint; typo; typographical error (a mistake in printed matter resulting from mechanical failures of some kind)

 Context examples 

Several researchers, including Alton Spencer, a high school student working with members of the TESS team, identified the error.

(NASA Planet Hunter Finds Earth-Size Habitable-Zone World, NASA)

Given the important role for RTK molecules in wound healing, the researchers speculate that DFT cancers may arise from errors in the maintenance of proliferative cells involved in tissue repair after injury.

(Human anti-cancer drugs could help treat transmissible cancers in Tasmanian devils, University of Cambridge)

The scientists involved say these errors may influence as many as 190 genes.

(Detailed genetic study provides most comprehensive map of risk to date of breast cancer risk, University of Cambridge)

Over time, the number of errors accumulates leading to uncontrolled cell growth – the development of tumours.

(‘Fingerprint database’ could help scientists to identify new cancer culprits, University of Cambridge)

What they found was truncated pieces of the viral genome that the virus had produced in error.

('Significant breakthrough' in understanding the deadly nature of pandemic influenza, University of Cambridge )

The Hubble data are so precise that astronomers cannot dismiss the gap between the two results as errors in any single measurement or method.

(Measuring Growth of Universe Reveals a Mystery, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

A very rare metabolic disorder characterized by an inborn error in the leucine degradation pathway.

(Beta-Methylcrotonylglycinuria, NCI Thesaurus)

It can present with widespread lesions (angiokeratoma corporis diffusum, often associated with inborn errors of metabolism) or as a localized lesion (angiokeratoma of Fordyce, angiokeratoma circumscriptum, and angiokeratoma of Mibelli).

(Angiokeratoma, NCI Thesaurus)

An optical condition in the eye where there is an error of refraction of light rays on the retina.

(Ametropia, NCI Thesaurus)

An indication that the subject's death or sacrifice was due to a mishap or technical/operational error.

(Accidental Death, NCI Thesaurus/CDISC)