Definition
An erratum (plural: errata) is an error appearing in a written, printed, or filed document. In legal usage, the term carries two related senses:
1. Documentary error. A mistake in a written instrument, court filing, or printed record — whether typographical, clerical, or substantive — that requires correction or acknowledgment.
2. Latin procedural formula. In the classical common law practice of writ of error proceedings, erratum appeared as part of the formal Latin pleading exchange. When a plaintiff in error assigned specific errors in the record below, the defendant in error responded with the formula "in nullo est erratum" — "in nothing is there error" — effectively joining issue on whether the alleged errors existed. This plea functioned as a demurrer to the assignment of errors, admitting the facts of record while denying that those facts constituted legal error.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A published notice reporting an error belatedly discovered in a previous publication; also, an error itself, especially one in a printed work.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): An error or mistake in writing or printing.
The gap between common and legal meaning is modest but real. In everyday and publishing contexts, an erratum is primarily the correction notice — something issued after the fact to flag a mistake. In historical legal procedure, erratum was not a correction notice but a term of art embedded in formal pleading, identifying the error being contested in an appellate proceeding. A researcher encountering "erratum" in an old legal record should not assume it signals a correction; it may instead signal the procedural posture of an error proceeding.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in pre-twentieth century common law materials will encounter erratum almost exclusively in its procedural Latin sense, embedded in writ of error pleadings. The phrase "in nullo est erratum" was the standard defense response to an assignment of errors and appears frequently in older appellate records, reported cases, and practice manuals. Recognizing this formula is essential to understanding the procedural posture of historical appellate litigation — it signals that the parties have joined issue on the legal sufficiency of the errors assigned, not that the defendant has acknowledged any mistake.
The shift to modern appellate practice eliminated Latin pleading formulas, so the procedural sense of erratum largely disappeared from live legal usage during the nineteenth century. In contemporary legal materials, erratum appears almost exclusively in its documentary sense: courts, agencies, and publishers issue errata sheets to correct clerical or typographical errors in opinions, regulations, and filed instruments. An errata sheet does not reopen a judgment or alter a document's legal effect on the merits; it corrects the record of what was intended.
The plural form errata is frequently misused in modern practice. Errata is plural; a single mistake is an erratum. This distinction occasionally matters in legal drafting and citation, though courts rarely turn on it.
Corpus researchers should be alert to the chronological divide: erratum in sources predating roughly 1850 is likely procedural Latin; erratum in sources after that period is likely documentary. Cross-referencing entries on WRIT OF ERROR and ASSIGNMENT OF ERRORS will clarify the procedural context in older materials.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd ed.) and Anderson's Dictionary of Law both treat erratum primarily through the Latin procedural lens, reflecting the era in which those works were compiled. Black's notes the term's use in formal assignment of errors and the responding formula "in nullo est erratum," defining it simply as "error." Anderson's provides slightly more procedural texture, describing "in nullo est erratum" as the emphatic words of a joinder of issue on an assignment of error and characterizing the plea as "in the nature of a demurrer."
Neither source addresses the modern documentary sense — the errata sheet or correction notice — which had not yet become the dominant usage when these dictionaries were written. This is a meaningful gap for researchers using these dictionaries to interpret contemporary materials. Both sources are reliable guides to the historical procedural formula but should not be treated as complete definitions for modern practice.