Errare

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To make a mistake or to err in judgment; to wander or stray from a correct path; to be mistaken in thought or action
2. To commit an error or lapse in accuracy; to deviate or roam away from an intended route; to arrive at an incorrect conclusion or decision
3. To falter or fail in correctness or truth; to move about without fixed direction; to hold a false belief or opinion

Etymology: "Errare" is the Latin verb meaning "to wander," "to stray," or "to go astray," and it is the ancestor of English "err." Its root sense is physical movement: a traveller who loses the road is wandering, and the verb's figurative sense of straying from the truth or from good conduct grew out of that image. Latin speakers used it of a traveller who had lost the way and of a mind that had strayed from the right course, so the moral sense of error was already present in the original verb. The English word "err" entered the language in the late Middle Ages, borrowed from Old French "errer," which itself came from the same Latin source. The word has been used in English for centuries, and its literal sense of wandering survives mainly in set phrases and older writing. The English phrase "to err is human" traces to an old Latin tag, "errare humanum est," which is often attributed to Seneca, though the exact wording is not in his surviving works.

Synonyms: err, make a mistake, stray, wander, blunder

Antonyms: correct, succeed, stay