- in a way that produces a result that is not correct or that you do not want
- My name is spelt wrong.
- The program won't load. What am I doing wrong?
- I was trying to apologize but it came out wrong (= what I said sounded wrong).
- ‘I thought you were going out.’ ‘Well you must have thought wrong, then!’
Which Word? wrong / wrongly / wrongfullywrong / wrongly / wrongfully- In informal language wrong can be used as an adverb instead of wrongly, when it means ‘incorrectly’ and comes after a verb or its object:
- My name was spelt wrong.
- I’m afraid you guessed wrong.
- My name was wrongly spelt.
- She guessed wrongly that he was a teacher.
- Wrongfully is usually used in a formal legal situation with words like convicted, dismissed and imprisoned.
Word Originlate Old English wrang, from Old Norse rangr ‘awry, unjust’; related to wring.
Idioms
See wrong in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee wrong in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic Englishget somebody wrong
- (informal) to not understand correctly what somebody means or what they are
- Don’t get me wrong (= do not be offended by what I am going to say), I think he’s doing a good job, but…
Extra Examples- Don't get me wrong—I'm not asking for special treatment.
- Don't get him wrong: Griffiths is not a conventional progressive.
get something wrong (informal)
- to not understand a situation correctly
- No, you've got it all wrong. She's his wife.
- You've got it all wrong. I never meant to imply that you were responsible.
- to make a mistake with something
- I must have got the figures wrong.
- It looks like they got their predictions wrong again.
go wrong
- to make a mistake
- If you do what she tells you, you won't go far wrong.
- Where did we go wrong with those kids (= what mistakes did we make for them to behave so badly)?
- (of a machine) to stop working correctly
- My watch keeps going wrong.
- to experience problems or difficulties
- The relationship started to go wrong when they moved abroad.
- What else can go wrong (= what other problems are we going to have)?
- What went wrong? You were doing really well.
- Something has gone badly wrong.
- to go terribly/seriously wrong
Extra Examples- Everything was going wrong in my life.
- Things seemed to be going horribly wrong.
put a foot wrong
- (usually used in negative sentences) to make a mistake
- In the last two games he has hardly put a foot wrong.
you can’t go wrong (with something)
- (informal) used to say that something will always be acceptable in a particular situation
- For a quick lunch you can't go wrong with pasta.
- You can't go wrong with spaghetti—everyone likes it.
Check pronunciation:
wrong