| error | 1. A wandering; a roving or irregular course. "The rest of his journey, his error by sea." (B. Jonson) 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. 3. A departing or deviation from the truth; falsity; false notion; wrong opinion; mistake; misapprehension. "H judgment was often in error, though his candor remained unimpaired." (Bancroft) 4. A moral offense; violation of duty; a sin or transgression; iniquity; fault. 5. <mathematics> The difference between the approximate result and the true result; used particularly in the rule of double position. 6. The difference between an observed value and the true value of a quantity. 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. 7. A mistake in the proceedings of a court of record in matters of law or of fact. 8. 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. Law of error, or Law of frequency of error, 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. Synonym: Mistake, fault, blunder, failure, fallacy, delusion, hallucination, sin. See Blunder. Origin: OF. Error, errur, F. Erreur, L. Error, fr. Errare to err. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
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| error, alpha | The statistical error (said to be of the first kind or type I) made in testing an hypothesis when it is concluded that a treatment or intervention is effective when it really is not. Sometimes referred to as a false positive. (12 Dec 1998) |
| error, beta | The statistical error (said to be of the second kind or type II) made in testing an hypothesis when it is concluded that a treatment or intervention is not effective when it really is. Sometimes referred to as a false negative. (12 Dec 1998) |
| error of the first kind | See: Error, alpha. (12 Dec 1998) |
| error of the second kind | See: Error, beta. (12 Dec 1998) |
| error-prone repair | <molecular biology> A type of DNA repair which occurs when both nucleotides in a base pair are missing, such that it is not possible to maintain accuracy. In general, the repair proteins replace the missing nucleotides randomly. The idea is that bad DNA is better than no DNA at all. (06 Mar 1998) |
| type i error | The statistical error (said to be of the first kind or alpha error) made in testing an hypothesis when it is concluded that a treatment or intervention is effective when it really is not. Sometimes referred to as a false positive. (12 Dec 1998) |
| type II error | The statistical error (said to be of the second kind or beta error) made in testing an hypothesis when it is concluded that a treatment or intervention is not effective when it really is. Sometimes referred to as a false negative. (12 Dec 1998) |
| experimental error | The total error of measurement ascribed to the conduct of an empirical observation. It is commonly expressed as the standard deviation of replicated experiments. There may be many components, including those in the sampling procedure, the measurements, injudicious choice of a model, observer bias, etc. (05 Mar 2000) |