''err'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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Primary

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''err'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260615002359-00-⌔

err - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

err (third-person singular simple present errs, present participle erring, simple past and past participle erred)

• (intransitive, formal) To make a mistake.
  • ✤ He erred in his calculations, and made many mistakes.
  • ✤ Artificial tests, then, can hardly err on the side of supplying too many opportunities for one bird to see another perform the act which is the model.¹
  • ✤ Gorbachev’s phrase, “fear to err,” is strikingly reminiscent of President Roosevelt’s phrase, “nothing to fear but fear itself.”²
• (intransitive) To sin.
  • ✤ To err is human, to forgive, divine.
• (archaic) to stray.

Interjection

err

• Elongated form of er (“sound of hesitation”).
  • ✤ * Err… what did you just say?*

Etymology 1

From Middle English erren, from Old French errer (“to wander, err, mistake”), from Latin errō (“wander, stray, err, mistake”, verb), from Proto-Indo-European ﹡h₁ers- (“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”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ɜː/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• (US) IPA: /ɛɚ/, /ɝ/
• (Scotland) IPA: /ɛr/
• (New Zealand) IPA: /øː/
• (Liverpool, fair–fur merger) IPA: /eː/
• (Humberside, Teesside, fair–fur merger) IPA: /ɛː/
• (Lancashire, fair–fur merger) IPA: /ɜː(ɹ)/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ), -ɛə(ɹ)
• Homophone: (all non-US pronunciations,/ɝ/US pronunciation:) er
• Homophones: (/ɛɚ/US pronunciation, all fair–fur merger pronunciations:) air, are (“unit of measurement”), ayr, Ayr, e’er, ere, eyre, heir

Etymology 2

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1910, James P. Porter, chapter 2, in Intelligence and Imitation in Birds; A Criterion of Imitation ‎${}^{[1]}$, page 7: ↩

2. 1989, L[eften] S[tavros] Stavrianos, Lifelines from Our Past: A New World History, New York: Pantheon Books, →ISBN, page 211: ↩

Link to original

Secondary

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