Word.ws English Dictionary

wrong side of the tracks

wrong side of the tracks noun: the part of town that is not inhabited by the wealthy. An area where the working class, poor or extremely poor live.

Noun

wrong side of the tracks (plural wrong sides of the tracks)

  1. (idiomatic) The part of town that is not inhabited by the wealthy. An area where the working class, poor or extremely poor live.
    • He grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, but he made a success of himself.
    • An arc electric light has been put toward the north side of the depot, […] As one gentleman expressed it, the people can more quickly see that they are on the "wrong side of the track."1893 June 29, “City and Vicinity”, in The Burlington Free Press and Times, volume 50, number 154, page 8

wrong side of the tracks meaning in Bengali

wrong side of the tracks in Bengali

দরিদ্র, অত্যন্ত দরিদ্ররা বাস করে

Examples of wrong side of the tracks in a sentence

  • “Can you come over to the wrong side of the tracks?” she asked, an amused dryness underscoring the delivery of that question.2011, Douglas Kennedy, The Moment, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 173:
  • McKenzie rose to prominence in the early 2000s playing Ryan Atwood, a brooding, musclebound teenager from the wrong side of the tracks who moves in with a wealthy family in Newport Beach, Calif.2022 March 31, David Yaffe-Bellany, “Ben McKenzie Would Like a Word With the Crypto Bros”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Synonyms of wrong side of the tracks

Forms of wrong side of the tracks

pluralwrong sides of the tracks

Origin of wrong side of the tracks

Originated from municipalities where the sections were divided by railway tracks.

Questions about wrong side of the tracks

What does wrong side of the tracks mean?
Wrong side of the tracks means the part of town that is not inhabited by the wealthy. An area where the working class, poor or extremely poor live.
What is wrong side of the tracks in Bengali?
Wrong side of the tracks in Bengali is দরিদ্র, অত্যন্ত দরিদ্ররা বাস করে. See Wrong side of the tracks meaning in Bengali.
How do you use wrong side of the tracks in a sentence?
“Can you come over to the wrong side of the tracks?” she asked, an amused dryness underscoring the delivery of that question.
What part of speech is wrong side of the tracks?
Wrong side of the tracks is a noun.
What is the plural of wrong side of the tracks?
The plural of wrong side of the tracks is wrong sides of the tracks.

Words near wrong side of the tracks in the dictionary

  1. wrong numbers
  2. wrong on so many levels
  3. wrong rook pawn
  4. wrong rook pawns
  5. wrong side
  6. wrong side of the tracks
  7. wrong side of town
  8. wrong side out
  9. wrong sides
  10. wrong sides of the tracks
  11. wrong take

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wrong side of the tracks (page history and authors); wrong side of the tracks (Bengali Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-wrong side of the tracks.ogg.

Cite this entry: “wrong side of the tracks.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wrong_side_of_the_tracks. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.