misstep

But her detractors had little patience for any missteps — and Thao made a few.

But the two also made missteps as administrators and politicians.

That second word is tricky since, to stars whose missteps come back to haunt them, consequence is coded language for "cancellation."

Still, other media organizations, looking at the very same data, held off until Saturday morning before officially declaring Biden the winner, haunted by the memory of past missteps.

But as that year proved, any small misstep can matter greatly because there is no time to recover.