go down the wrong way
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to be received unfavorably or cause offense
Literally: to pass through the throat in an incorrect direction
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Handing him one of the cans, she drank from her own, and coughed as it went down the wrong way.
Lili's cigarette smoke went down the wrong way.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “go down the wrong way” mean?
to be received unfavorably or cause offense Literally: to pass through the throat in an incorrect direction
Is “go down the wrong way” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.