Other forms: corrected, correcting, corrects
Correct means with no mistakes in it. The correct answer, is that correct?, correct to three decimal places.
It is slightly more formal than right, and it is the word used where accuracy is being judged — a test, a form, a calculation. Right can also mean morally good, which correct cannot. As a verb, to correct is to put mistakes right: correct the spelling, correct me if I am wrong. Note politically correct, a fixed and heavily contested phrase, and that correction, corrective and correctional are three quite different derived words — the last one meaning prison.
1adjectivecorrectHaving no mistakes.
“All six answers were correct.”
2verbputTo put mistakes right.
“She corrected the spelling and sent it back.”
3adjectivefollowingFollowing accepted standards of behaviour.
“He was perfectly correct throughout, and perfectly cold.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
correct is a state of being without mistakes.
Also accepted in games: right, accurate
Latin corrigere is com- plus regere, to guide straight — the same verb behind regular, direct and rectangle. To correct something is to straighten it, which is exactly what a proofreader's marks do to a crooked line of type.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₃reǵ-
Latin
correctus — improved, amended, correct
French
correct
English, today
correct
Built from
Borrowed from French correct, from Latin correctus (“improved, amended, correct”), past participle of corrigere, conrigere (“to make straight, make right, make better, improve, correct”), from con- (“together”) + combining form of rego (“I rule, make straight”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA