An error or something done incorrectly, or the verb meaning to identify something wrongly or to make an error.
From Old Norse 'mistaka,' combining 'mis-' (wrong) and 'taka' (to take), originally meaning to take something wrongly; entered English through Scandinavian contact around 1200s.
The Viking root of 'mistake' is fitting—it literally means 'to take wrongly,' and that image of grabbing the wrong thing is exactly what a mistake is: grabbing the wrong answer, wrong decision, wrong interpretation.
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