"get one's wires crossed" meaning in English

See get one's wires crossed in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-get one's wires crossed.ogg [Australia] Forms: gets one's wires crossed [present, singular, third-person], getting one's wires crossed [participle, present], got one's wires crossed [past], got one's wires crossed [UK, participle, past], gotten one's wires crossed [US, participle, past]
Etymology: From the early days of telephony, when touching wires could reroute conversations. Head templates: {{en-verb|get<,,got,got􂀿UK􂁀:gotten􂀿US􂁀> one's wires crossed}} get one's wires crossed (third-person singular simple present gets one's wires crossed, present participle getting one's wires crossed, simple past got one's wires crossed, past participle (UK) got one's wires crossed or (US) gotten one's wires crossed)
  1. (intransitive, idiomatic) To get confused or mixed up about another person's intentions; to misunderstand one another. Tags: idiomatic, intransitive Related terms: crossed wires Translations (to misunderstand one another): avoir un malentendu (French), s’emmêler les pinceaux (French), einander missverstehen (German), an einander vorbeireden (German), cruzársele los cables (a alguien) (Spanish)
    Sense id: en-get_one's_wires_crossed-en-verb-xzWWPJn4 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for get one's wires crossed meaning in English (3.0kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From the early days of telephony, when touching wires could reroute conversations.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "gets one's wires crossed",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "getting one's wires crossed",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "got one's wires crossed",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "got one's wires crossed",
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gotten one's wires crossed",
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "get<,,got,got􂀿UK􂁀:gotten􂀿US􂁀> one's wires crossed"
      },
      "expansion": "get one's wires crossed (third-person singular simple present gets one's wires crossed, present participle getting one's wires crossed, simple past got one's wires crossed, past participle (UK) got one's wires crossed or (US) gotten one's wires crossed)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "We got our wires crossed so I went to the bus station and she headed to the railway station.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1949 November, “Chess Caviar”, in Chess Review",
          "text": "TELEPHONE MATCH, 1949. White gets his wires crossed from trying to call on two variations at once and picks the wrong number in Black who cuts him off short.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To get confused or mixed up about another person's intentions; to misunderstand one another."
      ],
      "id": "en-get_one's_wires_crossed-en-verb-xzWWPJn4",
      "links": [
        [
          "confused",
          "confused"
        ],
        [
          "mixed up",
          "mixed up"
        ],
        [
          "misunderstand",
          "misunderstand"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive, idiomatic) To get confused or mixed up about another person's intentions; to misunderstand one another."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "crossed wires"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "intransitive"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "note": "käydä väärinkäsitys (subject in adessive)",
          "sense": "to misunderstand one another"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "to misunderstand one another",
          "word": "avoir un malentendu"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "to misunderstand one another",
          "word": "s’emmêler les pinceaux"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "to misunderstand one another",
          "word": "einander missverstehen"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "to misunderstand one another",
          "word": "an einander vorbeireden"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "to misunderstand one another",
          "word": "cruzársele los cables (a alguien)"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-get one's wires crossed.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/11/En-au-get_one%27s_wires_crossed.ogg/En-au-get_one%27s_wires_crossed.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/En-au-get_one%27s_wires_crossed.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "get one's wires crossed"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the early days of telephony, when touching wires could reroute conversations.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "gets one's wires crossed",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "getting one's wires crossed",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "got one's wires crossed",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "got one's wires crossed",
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gotten one's wires crossed",
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "get<,,got,got􂀿UK􂁀:gotten􂀿US􂁀> one's wires crossed"
      },
      "expansion": "get one's wires crossed (third-person singular simple present gets one's wires crossed, present participle getting one's wires crossed, simple past got one's wires crossed, past participle (UK) got one's wires crossed or (US) gotten one's wires crossed)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "crossed wires"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English intransitive verbs",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs",
        "Requests for review of Russian translations",
        "Requests for review of Turkish translations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "We got our wires crossed so I went to the bus station and she headed to the railway station.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1949 November, “Chess Caviar”, in Chess Review",
          "text": "TELEPHONE MATCH, 1949. White gets his wires crossed from trying to call on two variations at once and picks the wrong number in Black who cuts him off short.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To get confused or mixed up about another person's intentions; to misunderstand one another."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "confused",
          "confused"
        ],
        [
          "mixed up",
          "mixed up"
        ],
        [
          "misunderstand",
          "misunderstand"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive, idiomatic) To get confused or mixed up about another person's intentions; to misunderstand one another."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-get one's wires crossed.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/11/En-au-get_one%27s_wires_crossed.ogg/En-au-get_one%27s_wires_crossed.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/En-au-get_one%27s_wires_crossed.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "note": "käydä väärinkäsitys (subject in adessive)",
      "sense": "to misunderstand one another"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "to misunderstand one another",
      "word": "avoir un malentendu"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "to misunderstand one another",
      "word": "s’emmêler les pinceaux"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "to misunderstand one another",
      "word": "einander missverstehen"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "to misunderstand one another",
      "word": "an einander vorbeireden"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "to misunderstand one another",
      "word": "cruzársele los cables (a alguien)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "get one's wires crossed"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.