mistake: [13] Mistake originally meant literally ‘take in error, take the wrong thing’. It was borrowed from Old Norse mistaka, a compound verb formed from the prefix mis- ‘wrongly’ and taka ‘take’. This sense survived in English for some time (‘to be ever busy, and mistake away the bottles and cans … before they be but half drunk of’, Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair 1614), but gradually through the late Middle English period the notion of ‘error’ came to the fore (it was already present in the Old Norse verb, which was used reflexively for ‘go wrong’, and was probably reinforced by Old French mesprendre, literally ‘take wrongly’, which was also used for ‘err’).
The noun use, ‘error’, emerged in the 17th century. => take
mistake (v.)
early 14c., "to commit an offense;" late 14c., "to misunderstand, misinterpret," from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse mistaka "take in error, miscarry," from mis- "wrongly" (see mis- (1)) + taka "take" (see take (v.)). Related: Mistook; mistaking.
mistake (n.)
1630s, from mistake (v.). Meaning "unintended pregnancy" is from 1957.
实用例句
1. The president beat his breast and called that deal a mistake.
总裁捶胸顿足，称那是个错误的交易。
来自柯林斯例句
2. This was a genuine mistake, but it did cause me some worry.
这是好心办错事，可是确实让我担心了一阵子。
来自柯林斯例句
3. Could you have given them the wrong drug by mistake?
你有没有可能一时疏忽给错他们药了呢？
来自柯林斯例句
4. I may have made a mistake in that regard.
我在那一点上可能已经犯了一个错误。
来自柯林斯例句
5. What women mistake as thoughtlessness is often just diffidence.
