▪ I. error
(ˈɛrə(r))
Forms: 4 erur, errur(e, 4, 6 erroure, 4–8 errour, (4–5 arrour, -owre, errowre, 5–6 errore, 6 erore), 4– error.
[a. OF. error, errur, errour (mod.Fr. erreur) = Pr. and Sp. error, It. errore:—L. errōr-em, f. errāre to wander, err. (Some of the early forms may be due to the influence of OF. erreüre:—Lat. type *errātūram).
Down to the end of the 18th c. the prevailing form was errour, which is the form given by Johnson and by Todd (1818); Bailey's Dict. introduces error in 1753, and this spelling is now universal. (In words which have -rr- before the suffix, as horror, terror, mirror, the spelling of -or for an older -our is accepted by British as well as American writers.)]
I. 1. The action of roaming or wandering; hence a devious or winding course, a roving, winding. Now only poet.
The primary sense in Latin; in Fr. and Eng. it occurs only as a conscious imitation of Lat. usage.
| 1594 Daniel Compl. Rosamond Wks. (1717) 50 Intricate innumerable Ways, With such confused Errors. 1610 J. Guillim Heraldry xvi. (1660) 201 Being by error lost, they [dogs] have refused meat. 1636 B. Jonson Discov. Wks. (ed. Rtldg.) 765 1 His error by sea, the sack of Troy, are put not as the argument of the work. 1654 R. Codrington tr. Ivstine 318 But Archagathus was taken by them, who had lost his Father in the error of the night. 1667 Milton P.L. iv. 239 The crisped Brooks, Rowling..With mazie error under pendant shades. 1673 Lady's Call. i. iv. ¶13. 30 [The moon] has a kind of certainty even in her planetary errors. 1743 R. Blair Grave 99 Where the..stream has slid along In grateful errors through the underwood. 1720 Gay Poems (1745) I. 13 If an enormous salmon chance to spy The wanton errors of the floating fly. 1872 Tennyson Gareth & Lynette 1183 The damsel's headlong error thro' the wood. |
II. † 2. Chagrin, fury, vexation; a wandering of the feelings; extravagance of passion.
Obs. [A common use in
OF.;
cf. irour, a.
OF. irour anger, which may have been confused with this word.]
| c 1320 Sir Beues 1907 Tho was Beues in strong erur. c 1325 Coer de L. 5937 Kyng Richard pokyd [? þo kyd] gret errour, Wrathe dede hym chaung colour. c 1450 Merlin xx. 318 A-boute his herte com so grete errour that it wete all his visage with teeres of his yien. 1460 Lybeaus Disc. 1081 The lord wyth greet errour Rod hom to hys tour. |
III. The action or state of erring.
3. a. The condition of erring in opinion; the holding of mistaken notions or beliefs; an instance of this, a mistaken notion or belief; false beliefs collectively. Phrases,
to be, stand in, lead into error;
† without error = ‘doubtless’.
| a 1300 Cursor M. 16900 (Cott.) Þan sal rise mar þan beforn errur of vr fai. c 1340 Ibid. 25225 (Cott. Galb.) All men þat in errure iss for to be broght vnto þi blis. c 1340 Hampole Prose Tr. 9 Astronomyenes..þeyre errowre es reproffede of haly doctours. 1340 ― Pr. Consc. 4277 Þus sal þai bring þe folk in errour Thurgh þair prechyng. c 1400 Mandeville xxxiv. (Roxb.) 155 To mayntene þam in þaire mawmetry and þaire errour. 1450 Myrc 63 Forsakest [thou] alle heresies and arrours. 1475 Caxton Jason 84 The king Serath confessid thenne openly that without errour appollo was a god. c 1500 Pol. Rel. & L. Poems 44 And if sche wot nat whoo it is, bute stonde in erore. 1548–9 (Mar.) Bk. Com. Prayer 127 We are brought out of darkness and error. 1596 Shakes. Merch. V. iii. ii. 78 In Religion, What damned error, but some sober brow Will blesse it? 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. i. iii. 8 For Error, to speake strictly, is a firme assent unto falsity. 1756 C. Lucas Ess. Waters I. 33 The general notion, that springs are colder in summer and warmer in winter, is but a vulgar error. 1776 Gibbon Decl. & Fall I. xv. 340 The paths of error are various and infinite. 1830 V. Knox Béclard's Anat. 194 This circumstance has led those into error. 1860 Tyndall Glac. ii. iv. 249 Let us here avoid an error which may readily arise out [of] the foregoing reflections. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) V. 136 Actions done in error are often thought to be involuntary injustice. |
b. personified.
| 1590 Spenser F.Q. i. i. 167 God help the man so wrapt in Errours endless train. 1601 Shakes. Jul. C. v. iii. 69 O Error soone conceyu'd, Thou..kil'st the Mother that engendred thee. 1646 J. Hall Horæ Vac. 6 Though error bee blinde, shee sometimes bringeth forth seeing Daughters. 1738 Wesley Psalms lxxx. xv, And Error in ten thousand Shapes Would every gracious Soul beguile. |
† c. A delusion, trick.
Obs. rare.
| c 1320 Seuyn Sag. (W.) 2353 So longe thai vsed this errour Thai were richcher than th' emperour. |
4. a. Something incorrectly done through ignorance or inadvertence; a mistake,
e.g. in calculation, judgement, speech, writing, action, etc. Phrase,
to commit an error.
clerical error (see
clerical).
| a 1340 Hampole Psalter Comm. 45 Errour in hit is ther non. c 1425 Wyntoun Cron. v. xii. 286 Huchowne bath and þe autore Gyltles ar of gret errore. 1483 Caxton Cato 3, I..byseche all suche that fynde faute or errour that of theyr charyte they correcte and amende hit. 1538 Starkey England 116, I wyl confesse thys to be a grete errore in our commyn wele. 1590 Shakes. Mids. N. v. i. 250 This is the greatest error of all the rest; the man should be put into the Lanthorne. 1651 Hobbes Leviath. i. iv. 15 For the errours of Definitions multiply themselves. 1710 H. Bedford Vind. Ch. Eng. 182 With all the Errors of the Press corrected in it with a Pen. 1781 Cowper Friendship iv, Boys care but little whom they trust, An errour soon corrected. 1816 Playfair Nat. Philos. 323 The first solution of the problem of the Precession..given by Newton..is not free from error. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. III. 125 He could hardly fail to perceive that he had committed a great error. |
† b. A mistake in the making of a thing; a miscarriage, mishap; a flaw, malformation.
nature's error = lusus naturæ.
Obs.| 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. v. i. (1495) 101 This wonderfull errour [abortion] happyth moost in shepe and geete. 1413 Lydg. Pilgr. Sowle iv. xxx. (1483) 78 Hit behoueth..that it [a statue] be fourged right withoute ony errour. 1697 Dryden (J.), He look'd like Nature's errour, as the mind And body were not of a piece design'd. 1791 Boswell Johnson (1816) I. 87 Sure, thou art an errour of nature. |
c. Law. A mistake in matter of law appearing on the proceedings of a court of record.
writ of error: a writ brought to procure the reversal of a judgement, on the ground of error. By the Judicature Act of 1875 writs of error are limited to criminal cases; in civil cases appeal is substituted.
plaintiff, defendant in error: the parties for or against whom the writ of error is used.
court of error (
U.S.), a court of appeal in cases of error.
† clerk of the errors (see
quot. 1706).
| 1495 Act 11 Hen. VII, c. 59 §2 The seid utlagaries..were reversed by meane of errour aftir the due order of your lawes. 1641 Termes de la Ley 142 Errour is a fault in a judgement, or in the processe, or proceeding to judgment, or in the execution upon the same in a Court of Record. 1663 Butler Hud. i. ii. 163 Lawyers..Do stave and tail with Writs of Error. 1699 Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) IV. 505 The place of clerk of the errors, worth {pstlg}400 per annum. 1706 Phillips, Clerk of the Errours, an Officer of the Common-Pleas, whose Business it is to Copy out and Certifie the Tenour of the Records of a Cause or Action, upon which the Writ of Errour is brought into any of those Courts. 1775 Sheridan Rivals Prol. i. 31 No writ of error lies—to Drury Lane! 1817 W. Selwyn Law Nisi Prius II. 1121 If the defendant avow for so much rent arrear, part whereof is not due at the time of the distress, and enters judgment for the whole, it will be error. 1821 Marshall Const. Opin. (1839) 239 The counsel for the defendant in error. 1827 Hallam Const. Hist. (1876) II. xii. 418 During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries writs of error from inferior courts to the house of lords became far less usual. |
d. Math. The quantity by which a result obtained by observation or by approximate calculation differs from an accurate determination.
error of a planet: the difference between its observed place and that indicated by calculation.
error of a clock: the difference between the time which it indicates and that which it ought to indicate.
law of error,
random error (see
quots.).
probable error,
standard error (see under the first element).
| 1726 tr. Gregory's Astron. I. 123 All the Errors of the Body L, arise from the Forces represented by the Right lines AM, MN. 1833 Herschel Astron. iii. 136 By applying its [clock's] error and rate..he can correct its indications. 1838 De Morgan Probab. 135 The number of positive and negative errors will in the long run be equal. 1875 F. Galton in Phil. Mag. 4th Ser. XLIX. 37 The law of frequency of error says that ‘magnitudes differing from the mean value by such and such multiples of the probable error, will occur with such and such degrees of frequency’. 1876 Law of error [see dispersion 6]. 1878 Tait & Stewart Uns. Univ. iii. 123 The same law as that of the Probability of error. 1910 Encycl. Brit. IX. 754/2 In mathematics, ‘error’ is the deviation of the observed or calculated quantity from its true value. The calculus of errors leads to the formulation of the ‘law of error’, which is an analytical expression of the most probably true value of a series of discordant values. 1936 Jrnl. R. Aeronaut. Soc. XL. 77 The distribution of the components of the velocity fluctuation at any given point appears to follow the ‘random error law’. 1951 M. Jahoda et al. Res. Methods Social Rel. I. iv. 100 Random error is due to those transient aspects of the person, of the situation of measurement, of the measurement procedure, etc., which are likely to vary by chance from one measurement to the next. 1959 Chambers's Encycl. VIII. 220/1 The component of molecular velocity along any chosen direction is distributed according to the so-called ‘error law’, i.e. the number of molecules whose component velocity u lies between narrow limits u and u + du is proportional to e-Au2du. |
5. A departure from moral rectitude; a transgression, wrong-doing.
In
mod. use conveying the notion either of something not wholly voluntary, and so excusable, or of something imprudent as well as blameable.
Cf. 4.
| c 1330 R. Brunne Chron. (1810) 78 William the Conquerour changis his wikked wille, Out of his first errour. 1393 Gower Conf. I. 21 Where lawe lacketh errour groweth. 1477 Earl Rivers (Caxton) Dictes 11 That they shuld escheue al errours & applye them to all good dedis. 1535 Coverdale Wisd. i. 12 O seke not youre owne death in y⊇ erroure of youre life. 1611 Bible Heb. ix. 7 Blood, which he offered for himselfe, and for the errors of the people. 1713 Berkeley in Guardian No. 8 Allusions to the errors of a very wild life. 1792 Burke Corr. (1844) III. 407 It is an error, not of the head, but of the heart. 1800 E. Hervey Mourtray Fam. II. 261 Capital vices? Say, rather, fashionable errors. 1851 Kingsley Lett. (1878) I. 252 Every error must in God's universe, bring down on itself..some cognate misery. |
6. Comb., as
error-blasted,
error-darkened,
error-free,
error-proof,
error-stricken,
error-tainted,
error-teaching,
adjs.;
error-analysis,
error-holder;
error-correcting,
error-detecting vbl. ns. (so
error-correction,
error-detection);
error box Astr., a quadrilateral area of sky whose dimensions correspond to the uncertainty of a measured position inside it.
| 1963 P. Strevens Papers in Lang. (1965) i. 8 The study of *error-analysis. 1968 Fox & Mayers Computing Methods for Scientists & Engineers V. 119 Wilkinson (1963) also gives more details in a reasonably elementary way, of the error analysis for matrix problems. |
| 1647 Ward Simple Cobler 16 A..minde..*Error-blasted from Heaven and Hell. |
| 1968 Space Sci. Rev. VIII. 536 The source *error box is defined only by the errors in the more accurately known radial (frequency) determinations. 1974 Nature 20 Dec. 661/1 We call attention here to the existence of a rich Abell cluster of galaxies in the error box of the Uhuru high galactic latitude source 3U1706 + 32. 1978 Sci. News 5 Aug. 88 X-ray observing equipment characteristically locates a source within a certain ‘error box’ that may contain several candidates for visual identification, and the task is to make the error box smaller or pick the likeliest candidate. |
| 1962 Gloss. Terms Automatic Data Processing 22 *Error correcting code, an error detecting code which uses additional code elements so that for certain errors the mutilated representation resembles more closely the original than any other valid representation. 1965 Math. in Biol. & Med. (Med. Res. Council) iii. 124 The similarity to, and the difference from, either the ‘substantialization’ of sign-sequences or error-correcting codes may be noted. |
| 1964 T. W. McRae Impact of Computers on Accounting vi. 164 These *error-correction procedures are very complicated indeed. |
| 1657 S. W. Schism Dispach't 558 The obscurity of ambiguities is most proper and least offensive to his *errour-darkned eyes. |
| 1927 J. Adams Errors in School 236 Applying the parallel to *error-detecting. 1962 Gloss. Terms Automatic Data Processing 22 Error detecting code, a code in which each representation of a character conforms to specific rules of construction, so that for certain errors the mutilated representation corresponds to no valid character. |
| 1927 J. Adams Errors in School 248 Responsibility of *error-detection. |
| Ibid. 38 *Error-free material. 1964 C. Dent Quantity Surveying by Computer iii. 32 Checking devices to ensure error-free tapes. |
| 1577 Vicary's Anat. To Rdr. 9 They are..condemned for ignoraunt men, and *errour-holders. |
| 1646 Shirley To Stanley, Let me deal plainly with your youth, Not *error-proof yet. |
| 1871 E. F. Burr Ad Fidem iv. 63 Bring truth home, to *error-stricken souls. |
| 1657 S. W. Schism Dispach't 239 The poison of heresy and *error-tainted opinions. |
| 1853 G. S. Faber Recapit. Apostasy 72 Giving heed to *error-teaching spirits and to doctrines concerning demons. |
Add:
[III.] [4.] e. Philately. A postage stamp which contains a misprint or other irregularity (
e.g. incorrect colour or paper),
esp. one which has been inadvertently put into circulation.
| 1866 Philatelist 1 Dec. 12/2 The 4 p. error has the watermark usually placed diagonally on the paper. 1927 Stanley Gibbons Monthly Jrnl. Sept. 282/1 Errors and varieties exist in abundance in all issues. 1957 Encycl. Brit. XVII. 715B/1 [The collection of] the late Col. E.H.R. Green..was especially rich in unusual materials, such as..a number of sheets of the imperforate 5-cent carmine error. 1971 D. Potter Brit. Eliz. Stamps xiv. 159 Collectors tend to use the words variety and error indiscriminately. 1987 Stamps Feb. 20/2 B. Alan Ltd have acquired two hitherto unrecorded major Commonwealth errors. |
[6.] error bar, a line drawn parallel to one of the axes of a graph to represent the uncertainty of one of the co-ordinates of the point through which it passes.
| 1968 Brit. Med. Bull. XXIV. 247/1 Graphs such as those in fig. 4 can be drawn out automatically, complete with *error bars, by means of a digital plotter. 1990 Metals & Materials July 438/1 Data can appear accurate and reliable until plotted with confidence limits or error bars. |
error circle Astron., a circular area of sky with the same significance as an error box.
| 1968 Astrophysical Jrnl. CLII. i. 1011 (caption) Each *error circle incloses a region wherein the sources should lie with a confidence of approximately 90 per cent. 1978 Nature 5 Jan. 35/1 The new QSO has been found within a 40{pp} error circle established by the SAS-3 X-ray Observatory. |
▪ II. error, v. Law.
(
ˈɛrə(r))
[f. prec. n.] trans. To determine or decide to be erroneous (a decision of a court).
| 1828 in Webster; and in mod. Dicts. |