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.
例文
1. The president beat his breast and called that deal a mistake .
総裁は、それは間違った取引だと地団駄を踏んだ。
2.This was a genuine mistake ，but it did cause me some worry.
これは好意的に間違ったことをしたが、確かにしばらく心配させられた。
3.Could you have given them the wrong drug by mistake ？
彼らに誤って薬を投与してしまった可能性はありませんか。
4.I may have made a mistake in that regard.
私はその点ですでに1つの間違いを犯しているかもしれません。
5.What women mistake as thoughtlessness is often just diffidence.