"in the wrong place at the wrong time" meaning in English

See in the wrong place at the wrong time in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Prepositional phrase

Audio: En-au-in the wrong place at the wrong time.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{head|en|prepositional phrase}} in the wrong place at the wrong time
  1. (literally) Describing actions or activities that the speaker considers inappropriate, misdirected, or unlikely to yield good results. Tags: literally
    Sense id: en-in_the_wrong_place_at_the_wrong_time-en-prep_phrase-wp1Y0cOU
  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. Tags: idiomatic Translations (Translations): zur falschen Zeit am falschen Ort (German), nel posto sbagliato al momento sbagliato (Italian), în locul nepotrivit la momentul nepotrivit (Romanian)
    Sense id: en-in_the_wrong_place_at_the_wrong_time-en-prep_phrase-fPEvcT47 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 36 64 Disambiguation of 'Translations': 38 62

Download JSON data for in the wrong place at the wrong time meaning in English (3.2kB)

{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "in the right place at the right time"
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "in the wrong place at the wrong time",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1844 July, “Come-outerism”, in Orestes Augustus Brownson, editor, Brownson's quarterly review, volume 1, number 3, page 375",
          "text": "[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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Describing actions or activities that the speaker considers inappropriate, misdirected, or unlikely to yield good results."
      ],
      "id": "en-in_the_wrong_place_at_the_wrong_time-en-prep_phrase-wp1Y0cOU",
      "links": [
        [
          "inappropriate",
          "inappropriate"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(literally) Describing actions or activities that the speaker considers inappropriate, misdirected, or unlikely to yield good results."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "literally"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "36 64",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1951, Motor, volume 98, page 350",
          "text": "... 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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, John A. Rich, Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Trauma and Violence in the Lives of Young Black Men, page xvi",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "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."
      ],
      "id": "en-in_the_wrong_place_at_the_wrong_time-en-prep_phrase-fPEvcT47",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(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."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "38 62",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "zur falschen Zeit am falschen Ort"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "38 62",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "nel posto sbagliato al momento sbagliato"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "38 62",
          "code": "ro",
          "lang": "Romanian",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "în locul nepotrivit la momentul nepotrivit"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-in the wrong place at the wrong time.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a1/En-au-in_the_wrong_place_at_the_wrong_time.ogg/En-au-in_the_wrong_place_at_the_wrong_time.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/En-au-in_the_wrong_place_at_the_wrong_time.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "in the wrong place at the wrong time"
}
{
  "antonyms": [
    {
      "word": "in the right place at the right time"
    }
  ],
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English prepositional phrases",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "Translation table header lacks gloss"
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "in the wrong place at the wrong time",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1844 July, “Come-outerism”, in Orestes Augustus Brownson, editor, Brownson's quarterly review, volume 1, number 3, page 375",
          "text": "[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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Describing actions or activities that the speaker considers inappropriate, misdirected, or unlikely to yield good results."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "inappropriate",
          "inappropriate"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(literally) Describing actions or activities that the speaker considers inappropriate, misdirected, or unlikely to yield good results."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "literally"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1951, Motor, volume 98, page 350",
          "text": "... 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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, John A. Rich, Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Trauma and Violence in the Lives of Young Black Men, page xvi",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "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."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(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."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-in the wrong place at the wrong time.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a1/En-au-in_the_wrong_place_at_the_wrong_time.ogg/En-au-in_the_wrong_place_at_the_wrong_time.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/En-au-in_the_wrong_place_at_the_wrong_time.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "zur falschen Zeit am falschen Ort"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "nel posto sbagliato al momento sbagliato"
    },
    {
      "code": "ro",
      "lang": "Romanian",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "în locul nepotrivit la momentul nepotrivit"
    }
  ],
  "word": "in the wrong place at the wrong time"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.