wrong end of the stick in English

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{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "?"
      },
      "expansion": "wrong end of the stick",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "As usual, the newspapers got hold of the wrong end of the stick and stated the whole problem in reverse."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A wrong idea about something, a misconception."
      ],
      "id": "en-wrong_end_of_the_stick-en-noun-GQWuwT98",
      "links": [
        [
          "idea",
          "idea"
        ],
        [
          "misconception",
          "misconception"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "shit end of the stick"
        },
        {
          "word": "short end of the stick"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "wrong end of the stick"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "?"
      },
      "expansion": "wrong end of the stick",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "shit end of the stick"
    },
    {
      "word": "short end of the stick"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English nouns with unknown or uncertain plurals"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "As usual, the newspapers got hold of the wrong end of the stick and stated the whole problem in reverse."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A wrong idea about something, a misconception."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "idea",
          "idea"
        ],
        [
          "misconception",
          "misconception"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "wrong end of the stick"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c 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.

"wrong end of the stick" meaning in English

Noun