go wrong
Idioms-
Go astray, make a mistake. For example, We made a left turn and somehow went wrong from then on , or You won't go wrong if you follow the directions in the dress pattern . [c. 1300]
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Take to evil ways, become a criminal, as in As soon as he turned thirteen, Billy fell in with a gang and began to go wrong . [c. 1500]
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Fail, turn out badly, as in Everything about this party has gone wrong . [Late 1500s]
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Fail to work properly, as in The car starts fine, but as soon as you put it in gear, the transmission goes wrong . [Late 1800s]
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But it’s the airline sector we’re talking about and investors are never too far away from something going wrong—just look at 2025.
From Barron's
Transparency is the key to understanding what went wrong.
From MarketWatch
“The people who volunteered, donated and voted deserve to know what went wrong,” Jamal Simmons, a former Harris vice presidential advisor, told the Hill newspaper.
From Los Angeles Times
For oil, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.
From Barron's
Now, he urges other tradesmen to carry them too, because tradesmen are "out and about in people's houses" and can be in the right place to help when things go wrong.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
