by trial and error

1. 1.

   in an empirical manner

   “this can be empirically tested”

   Synonymsempiricallythrough empirical observation

Questions about by trial and error

What does by trial and error mean?

by trial and error means "in an empirical manner".

What is another word for by trial and error?

Close synonyms include empirically, through empirical observation. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is by trial and error a common word?

by trial and error is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.