Meanings
alternative the wrong side out · alternative wrong side before · alternative wrongside out · alternative wrong-side out · alternative wrong-side-out
- not comparableOf a garment, etc, having its inner or hidden side on the outside and vice versa.
We all struggled frantically into our clothes, […] getting them wrong-side-out and upside-down, as a rule.
1883, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], Life on the Mississippi, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, →OCLC1 more example
She began to remove her sweaty clothes, but noticed for the first time that she had her chambray shirt on wrongside out.
1970, Donald Harington, Lightning BugSynonyms: inside out
- figurativelynot comparableReversed, changed diametrically, by analogy with a garment that is wrong side out.
When I inform'd him, then he call'd me sot, And told me I had turn'd the wrong side out.
c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]
Synonyms & antonyms
adverbOf a garment, etc, having its inner or hidden side on the outside and vice versa.
Cite this entry
wrong side out. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wrong%20side%20out
“wrong side out.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wrong%20side%20out. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “wrong side out,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wrong%20side%20out.
Source: wrong side out on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.