From WordNet (r) 2.0 (August 2003) [wn]:
error
n 1: a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or
inattention; "he made a bad mistake"; "she was quick to
point out my errors"; "I could understand his English in
spite of his grammatical faults" [syn: mistake,
fault]
2: inadvertent incorrectness [syn: erroneousness]
3: a misconception resulting from incorrect information [syn:
erroneous belief]
4: (baseball) a failure of a defensive player to make an out
when normal play would have sufficed [syn: misplay]
5: departure from what is ethically acceptable [syn:
wrongdoing]
6: (computer science) the occurrence of an incorrect result
produced by a computer [syn: computer error]
7: part of a statement that is not correct; "the book was full
of errors" [syn: mistake]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Error \Er"ror\, n. [OF. error, errur, F. erreur, L. error, fr.
errare to err. See Err.]
1. A wandering; a roving or irregular course. [Obs.]
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The rest of his journey, his error by sea. --B.
Jonson.
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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.
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3. A departing or deviation from the truth; falsity; false
notion; wrong opinion; mistake; misapprehension.
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His judgment was often in error, though his candor
remained unimpaired. --Bancroft.
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4. A moral offense; violation of duty; a sin or
transgression; iniquity; fault. --Ps. xix. 12.
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5. (Math.) The difference between the approximate result and
the true result; -- used particularly in the rule of
double position.
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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.
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7. (Law.) A mistake in the proceedings of a court of record
in matters of law or of fact.
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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.
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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. --Bouvier. Burrill.
Syn: Mistake; fault; blunder; failure; fallacy; delusion;
hallucination; sin. See Blunder.
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From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (19 Sep 2003) [foldoc]:
error
1. A discrepancy between a computed, observed, or measured
value or condition and the true, specified, or theoretically
correct value or condition.
2. <programming> A mental mistake made by a programmer that
may result in a program fault.
3. (verb) What a program does when it stops as result of a
programming error.
(2000-03-28)