There can only be one fitting choice for my first “Words Are Cool” submission for your consideration, and that is “Error”.
As the saying goes, “Begin as you mean to go on.” And as I’m certain that, even with the best research efforts, there will be plenty of errors in my future Words Are Cool! blog articles, I may as well begin with Error.
As Cervantes no doubt knew, “Error” and the Knight “Errant” share the same word origin. Read that way, Don Quijote is a massive, glorious etymology pun.
The Latin errare (which, famously, humanum est) mainly means “to wander“, and only figuratively “going astray, making a mistake”.
So when you think about it that way, errors are just what you get when you step off the beaten path. They are the price of learning and of creativity.
Maybe we could all benefit from a bit more erring then, eh?