Word.ws English Dictionary

bark up the wrong tree

bark up the wrong tree verb: to take the wrong approach to a situation; to follow a false lead; to attempt to solve a problem using mistaken assumptions about its true nature.

Verb

bark up the wrong tree (third-person singular simple present barks up the wrong tree, present participle barking up the wrong tree, simple past and past participle barked up the wrong tree)

  1. (idiomatic) To take the wrong approach to a situation; to follow a false lead; to attempt to solve a problem using mistaken assumptions about its true nature.
    • The investigator spent days trying to prove the butler committed the murder, but it turns out he was barking up the wrong tree.
    • You're not the first man who has made such a mistake, and found he was barking up the wrong tree.1894, Robert Barr, chapter 21, in In the Midst of Alarms

Forms of bark up the wrong tree

third-person singular presentbarks up the wrong tree
present participlebarking up the wrong tree
past participlebarked up the wrong tree
pastbarked up the wrong tree

Origin of bark up the wrong tree

An allusion to a situation in which a hunting dog misidentifies the tree up which it has chased an animal and positions itself at the base of another tree, barking upward at the branches.

Questions about bark up the wrong tree

What does bark up the wrong tree mean?
Bark up the wrong tree means to take the wrong approach to a situation; to follow a false lead; to attempt to solve a problem using mistaken assumptions about its true nature.
What part of speech is bark up the wrong tree?
Bark up the wrong tree is a verb.
What is the past tense of bark up the wrong tree?
The past tense of bark up the wrong tree is barked up the wrong tree.

Words near bark up the wrong tree in the dictionary

  1. Bark scale
  2. bark scorpion
  3. bark scorpions
  4. bark spud
  5. bark spuds
  6. bark up the wrong tree
  7. Barka
  8. barkada
  9. barkadas
  10. Barkam
  11. barkan

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bark up the wrong tree (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-bark up the wrong tree.ogg.

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