slip-up

plural slip-ups · alternative slipup

1. idiomaticA (small) error or mistake; a (minor) misstep.

   I think she will forgive an accidental slip-up, so don’t worry too much about misspeaking.

   5 more examples

   The door step was a broad unhewn rock, brought from the neighboring pasture. It had not a flat and even surface, but was considerably sloping from the door to the road, so that in icy times the scholars in passing out used to snatch from the scant declivity the transitory pleasures of a slide. But look out for a slip-up, ye careless, for many a time have I seen an urchin's head where his feet were but a second before.

   [1839 November, “The District School as It Was. By One who Went to It.”, in Connecticut Common School Journal, volume II, number 4, Hartford, Conn.: Published under the direction of the Board of Commissioners of Common Schools; printed by Case, Tiffany & Co., […], →OCLC, page 60, column 1

   Fearing to advance upon unknown grounds lest he might meet with some of those slip-ups which kill an orator dead, he waits until the question, proposed by others, has become well set forth; then, having a clear perception of the subject, he enters the lists and conducts the attack by a well-known process at the bar—that of assailing the weakest point of the enemy.

   1867, Lucien de la Hodde, chapter XVI, in [John Wolcott Phelps], transl., The Cradle of Rebellions, a History of the Secret Societies of France, Galion, Oh.: A. Estill, […], →OCLC, pages 368–369

   Then, Old Hugo came near a bad slip-up; though he was only one of the gipsies. He was caught 'shoving the queer' in Newark and New York.

   1867, Orpheus C. Kerr [pseudonym; Robert Henry Newell], “The Miller and His Men”, in Avery Glibun; or, Between Two Fires. A Romance, New York, N.Y.: G. W. Carleton & Co., publishers; London: S[ampson] Low, Son, & Co., →OCLC, page 166, column 2

   The chess-player also has need of a quick eye and a steady nerve; [...] However, the self-possession which he requires is to be distinguished from freedom from the momentary nervous excitement which causes so many "slip-ups" in billiards.

   1867 March 13, “C.”, “Games”, in The Advocate, volume III, number I, Cambridge, Mass.: Published […], by the students of Harvard College; press of John Wilson and Son, →OCLC, page 5, column 1

   [...] I was a little irritated with his attitude of pinpoint criticism and his habit of coming to me with reports of footling slip-ups which he could easily have set right himself or brought to the attention of the clerks concerned, [...]

   1955 January 22, S. Roberts, “The Man who Made the Grade: A Short Story”, in Ram Singh, A. K. Mukerji, editors, Thought, air edition, volume VII, number 4, New Delhi: Printed on behalf of Siddhartha Publications Ltd., by R. L. Chadha at Naya Hindustan Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 9, column 2

   Synonyms: aberration, bloomer, blooper, blunder, boner, boo-boo, break, clanger