Other forms: wrongs
Wrong means not right — the answer that does not match, the turning you should not have taken. You dial the wrong number, get on the wrong train, spell someone's name wrong all year.
It stretches a long way past mistakes. Something wrong can be morally bad — 'it was wrong of me to read her messages' — or simply broken: 'what's wrong with the printer?' It works as an adverb too, which surprises learners, because there is no -ly: you can do it wrong, go wrong, get it wrong. As a noun it survives mostly in fixed phrases, telling right from wrong, two wrongs don't make a right. And 'What's wrong?' asked of a person is not an accusation; it means 'what's the matter, are you all right?'
1adjectivewrongNot correct; containing a mistake.~30%
“Three of my answers were wrong, but I passed anyway.”
2adjectivewantedNot the one you wanted, needed or meant.~15%
“I picked up the wrong bag at the airport.”
3adjectiveimmoralMorally bad or unfair.~23%
“He knew it was wrong to keep the money.”
synonyms: immoral, unjust
4adjectiveworkingNot working or not as it should be.~7%
“Something is wrong with the boiler again.”
5adverbmistakenIn a mistaken way.~2%
“You are holding the racket wrong.”
6noununjustAn unjust action.~23%
“She spent years trying to put right a wrong done to her father.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 13 sentences found in the wild and placed 13 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: incorrect
Wrong is a crooked word, literally. Old English wrang meant 'twisted, uneven', and it came in from Old Norse rangr, 'crooked'; behind that sits Proto-Germanic *wrangaz, 'turned awry', and an ancient root meaning 'to turn, bend'. The same root twists through wring, which is what you do to a wet towel. Wrong, then, is the shape that is not straight.
Middle English
wrong
English, today
wrong
Built from
From Middle English wrong. From Middle English wrong, from Old English wrang (“wrong, twisted, uneven”), from Old Norse rangr, vrangr (“crooked, wrong”), from Proto-Germanic wrangaz (“crooked, twisted, turned awry”), from Proto-Indo-European werḱ-, wrengʰ- (“to twist, weave, tie together”), from wer- (“to turn, bend”). Cognate with Scots wrang (“wrong”), Danish vrang (“wrong, crooked”), Swedish vrång (“perverse, distorted”), Icelandic rangur (“wrong”), Norwegian Nynorsk rang (“wrong”), Dutch wrang (“bitter, sour”) and the first element in the mythic Old Frisian - city of Rungholt (“crooked wood”). More at wring.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA