English · Proverb Candidate

if anything can go wrong, it will

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

Everything that can possibly go wrong will go wrong

Examples

As soon as I planned the outdoor wedding, I thought to myself, if anything can go wrong, it will

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed on English Wikiquote “English proverbs” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31). Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-08-01; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “if anything can go wrong, it will” mean?

Everything that can possibly go wrong will go wrong

Is “if anything can go wrong, it will” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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