Word.ws English Dictionary

error/mistake distinction

error/mistake distinction noun: the distinction drawn by some language teachers between an "error" (a mistaken belief that a given usage or construction is correct; or, an incorrect use resulting from such a belief) and "a mistake" (an accidental use of a usage or construction despite knowing that it is incorrect).

Noun

the error/mistake distinction

  1. The distinction drawn by some language teachers between an "error" (a mistaken belief that a given usage or construction is correct; or, an incorrect use resulting from such a belief) and "a mistake" (an accidental use of a usage or construction despite knowing that it is incorrect).

Questions about error/mistake distinction

What does error/mistake distinction mean?
Error/mistake distinction means the distinction drawn by some language teachers between an "error" (a mistaken belief that a given usage or construction is correct; or, an incorrect use resulting from such a belief) and "a mistake" (an accidental use of a usage or construction despite knowing that it is incorrect).
What part of speech is error/mistake distinction?
Error/mistake distinction is a noun.

Words near error/mistake distinction in the dictionary

  1. error treatment
  2. error-free
  3. error-prone
  4. error-proneness
  5. error-pronenesses
  6. error/mistake distinction
  7. errorbar
  8. errorbars
  9. errored
  10. errored out
  11. errorfree

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: error/mistake distinction (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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