o ‧ ver ‧ sight /ˈəʊvəsaɪt $ ˈoʊvər-/ BrE AmE noun [uncountable and countable]
[ Word Family: noun : ↑ sight , ↑ insight , ↑ oversight , ↑ sighting ; adjective : ↑ sighted , ↑ unsightly , ↑ sightless , ↑ insightful ; verb : ↑ sight ]
1 . a mistake in which you forget something or do not notice something:
I assure you that this was purely an oversight on my part.
2 . have oversight of something to be in charge of something:
He has general oversight of all training courses.
• • •
THESAURUS
▪ mistake something incorrect that you accidentally do, say, or write:
a spelling mistake
|
I made a mistake – it should say £230, not £320.
▪ error formal a mistake:
an error in the report
|
grammatical errors
|
He had made a serious error on his tax form.
▪ misprint a small mistake in something that is printed:
There was a misprint in the article, and instead of ‘pleasant’ it said ‘pheasant’.
▪ typo informal a mistake in something that has been typed or printed:
I spotted a couple of typos in the letter.
▪ inaccuracy formal a piece of information that is not completely correct:
The report contained several inaccuracies.
▪ mix-up a careless mistake in which one name, time, address etc has been confused with another, so that the details of something are wrong:
There was a mix-up over the train times and I missed my train.
▪ slip-up a careless mistake when you are doing something:
The other team took advantage of the goalie’s slip-up.
▪ oversight a mistake in which you forget something or do not notice something:
Through some oversight, the brochures were not ready by the right date.
▪ a slip of the tongue a mistake in which you accidentally say a similar sounding word:
When I said Thursday, I meant Tuesday. It was a slip of the tongue.
▪ faux pas /ˌfəʊ ˈpɑː, ˈfəʊ pɑː $ ˌfoʊ ˈpɑː/ formal an embarrassing mistake in a social situation, when you do or say something that you shouldn’t:
Harris, trying to be funny, addressed the waiter as ‘boy’. A deathly silence followed this faux pas.