erreurs

Erreurs is the plural of the French noun erreur, meaning a deviation from correctness or accuracy, a mistaken belief, or an action that fails to achieve its intended result. The word derives from Latin errare, to wander, and has cognates in many languages. In everyday language, erreurs can refer to simple mistakes, miscalculations, misspellings, or faulty judgments; in technical contexts, the term designates measurable deviations from a reference standard or truth.

In linguistics and education, erreurs describe incorrect language forms produced by speakers or learners, such as mispronunciations, erroneous grammar, or spelling mistakes. They are studied to understand language acquisition and to inform teaching, and are often distinguished from normative corrections or prescriptive rules. In editing or translation, erreur can refer to a faulty rendering or a misprint.

In science, statistics, and computing, erreur denotes the difference between a measured value and the true value: random (imprecision) errors and systematic (bias) errors. In French statistical terminology, types I and II errors are referred to as erreur de type I and erreur de type II, corresponding to false positives and false negatives. In computing, erreurs include syntax errors, runtime errors, and logical errors that prevent a program from functioning or producing correct results. In psychology and epistemology, errors explore limits of cognition and knowledge, including cognitive biases and memory faults, while fallibilism notes that knowledge can be provisional and subject to correction.