Contextualizebeta

get one's wires crossed

verb

Etymology

From the early days of telephony, when touching wires could reroute conversations.

Definitions

  1. To get confused or mixed up about another person's intentions

    To get confused or mixed up about another person's intentions; to misunderstand one another.

    • We got our wires crossed so I went to the bus station and she headed to the railway station.
    • "TELEPHONE MATCH, 1949. White gets his wires crossed from trying to call on two variations at once and picks the wrong number in Black who cuts him off short."

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for get one's wires crossed. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA