wrong number

plural wrong numbers

1. A telephone number dialled by mistake, for example, by transposing digits.

   I am sorry. You have the wrong number. — Oh. Is this 555-8986? — No. This is 555-8689. — Oh. Excuse me! — Okay. Bye.

   2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)

2. broadlyA telephone call received from an unfamiliar caller, due to a mistake in the number dialled.

   - Who was that on the phone? - It was just a wrong number.

3. datedidiomaticAn incorrect notion or understanding concerning a person or situation.

   Codd said . . . when he had her fixed and tested her a few times he would take me up for a ride. "You got the wrong number," I says. "I don't feel flighty."

   1920, Ring Lardner, The Big Town

   2 more examples

   The readers probably expecting me to go on about how Johnny was real nostalgic about some kind of material security. . . . Well, the readers got the wrong number.

   1984, David Homel (translator), Jacques Renaud (author), Broke City (original French edition, Le cassé, 1964), p. 37 (Google preview)

   His musical system, like the political system he served, would rescue the present moment from crisis and place it at last in productive harmony with history's demands. Boy, did he have the wrong number.

   2005 February 20, Richard Taruskin, “Music: Restoring Comrade Roslavets”, in New York Times, retrieved 01 Jun 2014

   Synonyms: misapprehension, misinterpretation, misunderstanding