Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To make an error or misjudgment.
  • intransitive verb To commit an act that is wrong; do wrong.
  • intransitive verb Archaic To stray.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To wander; go in a devious and uncertain course.
  • To deviate from the true course or purpose; hence, to wander from truth or from the path of duty; depart from rectitude; go astray morally.
  • To go astray in thought or belief; be mistaken; blunder; misapprehend.
  • To mislead; cause to deviate from truth or rectitude.
  • To miss; mistake.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb Archaic To wander; to roam; to stray.
  • intransitive verb To deviate from the true course; to miss the thing aimed at.
  • intransitive verb To miss intellectual truth; to fall into error; to mistake in judgment or opinion; to be mistaken.
  • intransitive verb To deviate morally from the right way; to go astray, in a figurative sense; to do wrong; to sin.
  • intransitive verb To offend, as by erring.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb intransitive To make a mistake.
  • verb intransitive To sin.
  • verb archaic to stray.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb to make a mistake or be incorrect
  • verb wander from a direct course or at random

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English erren, from Old French errer, from Latin errāre, to wander; see ers- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English erren, from Old French errer ("to wander, err, mistake"), from Latin errō ("wander, stray, err, mistake", v), from Proto-Indo-European *ares- (“to be angry, lose one's temper”). Cognate with Old English eorre, ierre ("anger, wrath, ire"), Old English iersian ("to be angry with, rage, irritate, provoke"), Old English ierre ("wandering, gone astray, confused").

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