err on the side of
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Meaning · English
Act with a specified bias towards something.
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The procedure adopted was to err as far as possible on the side of conservatism, scoring each reply as ' psychotic ' only where this seemed reasonably certain.
Partly because of anguish that they failed to anticipate Ethiopia's 1984–85 famine, and partly to cajole rich countries into giving lots of food, aid workers do tend to err on the side of exaggeration.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Figurative class: Metaphor (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).
Common questions
What does “err on the side of” mean?
Act with a specified bias towards something.
Is “err on the side of” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.