trial and error

1. 1.

   experimenting until a solution is found

   Broaderexperiment

Questions about trial and error

What does trial and error mean?

trial and error means "experimenting until a solution is found".

Is trial and error a common word?

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.