Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A typographical error.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An abbreviation of typographic, typographical, or typography.
  • noun A compositor.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun colloq. a typographical error; an error in typing, printing, etc.
  • noun colloq. A compositor.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun colloquial, dated A compositor; a typographer.
  • noun A spelling or typographical error.
  • verb To make a typographical error.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a mistake in printed matter resulting from mechanical failures of some kind

Etymologies

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Examples

Comments

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  • I'm looking for a word that means "a typo that changes the meaning of the surrounding idea."

    Its something I do all the time. Here's some examples from recent iChat logs:

    meant: I'm not gonna go there tonight.

    typed: I'm not gonna go here tonight.

    meant: you get an A for the trumpet

    typed: you get an A for the trumped

    meant: i like this one so far

    typed: i like this one say far

    meant: new york times

    typed: new your times

    Sometimes I find that its just a missed or mistyped letter, but other times its a word that I was going to write two sentences later, some kinda brain-bored-waiting-for-fingers thing.

    Does anyone else wrestle with this?

    September 26, 2007

  • Wrestle with, yes. Have word for, no (though I'd like one).

    Semantic typos like that are doubly pernicious because they're usually spellcheck-proof.

    September 26, 2007

  • Um... how about "semantic typo?"

    September 26, 2007

  • that works pretty well. i think i'll use that.

    September 26, 2007

  • My hero.

    April 28, 2008

  • The verb is short for "typographically err".

    January 26, 2018

  • In Scrabble, a word that looks like a misspelling of another word. Useful for tricking opponents into challenging valid words. For example, sycosis looks like a misspelling of psychosis.

    November 27, 2019