Word.ws English Dictionary

in the wrong place at the wrong time

in the wrong place at the wrong time prepositional phrase: describing actions or activities that the speaker considers inappropriate, misdirected, or unlikely to yield good results.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (literally) Describing actions or activities that the speaker considers inappropriate, misdirected, or unlikely to yield good results.
    • [The devil] must then chime in with our sentiments, our instincts, even stimulate our devotion to liberty, and defeat liberty by compelling us to seek it in the wrong place, at the wrong time, or by improper means.1844 July, “Come-outerism”, in Orestes Augustus Brownson, editor, Brownson's quarterly review, volume 1, number 3, page 375
  2. (idiomatic) At a location or in a situation by where something bad is about to happen at just the time of its occurrence by bad luck.
    • ... W.H. Waring (Dellow) nearly cut short the life of a native of those parts who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and J.W. Cox got his Dellow up at incredible speed, with the front wheels leaping in the air most of the way.1951, Motor, volume 98, page 350
    • It is a perplexing expression, since many of these young people were not in the "wrong place." ... I believe that when they say "I guess I was in the wrong place at the wrong time," they are reflecting on the randomness of violence.2009, John A. Rich, Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Trauma and Violence in the Lives of Young Black Men, →ISBN, page xvi

Antonyms of in the wrong place at the wrong time

Words formed from in the wrong place at the wrong time

Questions about in the wrong place at the wrong time

What does in the wrong place at the wrong time mean?
In the wrong place at the wrong time means describing actions or activities that the speaker considers inappropriate, misdirected, or unlikely to yield good results.
What part of speech is in the wrong place at the wrong time?
In the wrong place at the wrong time is a prepositional phrase.

Words near in the wrong place at the wrong time in the dictionary

  1. in the wink of an eye
  2. in the works
  3. in the world
  4. in the worst way
  5. in the wrong
  6. in the wrong place at the wrong time
  7. in the zone
  8. in theory
  9. in there like swimwear
  10. in this connection
  11. in this day and age

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in the wrong place at the wrong time (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-in the wrong place at the wrong time.ogg.

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