Library / English Dictionary

GO WRONG

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Be unsuccessful

Example:

The attempt to rescue the hostages failed miserably

Synonyms:

fail; go wrong; miscarry

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "go wrong"):

take it on the chin (undergo failure or defeat)

miss (fail to reach or get to)

overreach (fail by aiming too high or trying too hard)

ball up; blow; bobble; bodge; bollix; bollix up; bollocks; bollocks up; botch; botch up; bumble; bungle; flub; fluff; foul up; fuck up; fumble; louse up; mess up; mishandle; muck up; muff; screw up; spoil (make a mess of, destroy or ruin)

strike out (be unsuccessful in an endeavor)

fall (suffer defeat, failure, or ruin)

shipwreck (suffer failure, as in some enterprise)

fall flat; fall through; flop; founder (fail utterly; collapse)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s
Something is ----ing PP
Somebody ----s PP

Credits

 Context examples: 

Wait on ’im yourself, then, and chuck up the sponge when things begin to go wrong.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This is a weekend date, but it has a wide area of influence, so you could see things go wrong in the days leading to it or in the days after.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Now, let me just run over the course of events, and you will contradict me if I go wrong.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

With Mercury retrograde, Murphy’s Law will be in play: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” 

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)