MEANING
To pursue the wrong explanation, suspect, or approach when trying to understand or solve something.
Use it for
describing an investigation aimed at the wrong person; warning that a proposed explanation misses the real cause; showing effort directed toward an unhelpful solution; correcting a mistaken suspicionIdentifies pursuit of the wrong cause, person, or solution rather than simply a hasty conclusion. Writing functions: Misdirected effort / Mistaken suspicion. Semantic categories (by meaning): Misdirected effort / Mistaken suspicion. Contexts: General conversation; Creative prose.
Words that belong together
- be barking up the wrong tree
- think someone is barking up the wrong tree
On the page
If you think the printer caused the missing file, you are barking up the wrong tree.
The investigators spent a week barking up the wrong tree before checking the delivery records.
Word forms
- Base
- bark up the wrong tree
Usage notes
Verbal idiom: bark/barks/barked/barking up the wrong tree; often be barking up the wrong tree. Register: informal. Commonness: common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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