wide of the mark
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Completely incorrect or far from the truth
Literally: missing a target
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
An analysis by Reddaway (1977) of the period 1961–71 showed that this view was wide of the mark; only 3 per cent of the purchase of motor cars and television sets in this period was attributable to population increase.
Hence, explanations and prescriptions which stress higher investment as the direct means to higher growth in the UK are probably very wide of the mark [Pollard, 1982].
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 “wide of the mark” mean?
Completely incorrect or far from the truth Literally: missing a target
Is “wide of the mark” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.