idiom · informal
get one's wires crossed
UK/ɡet wʌnz waɪəz krɒst/US/ɡet wʌnz waɪərz krɔːst/get·one's·WIRES·crossed
to have a misunderstanding with someone because something was said or understood wrongly
Examples
“I think we got our wires crossed — I thought you said Friday, not Thursday.”
“Somewhere along the way our wires got crossed and the package went to the wrong address.”
“They got their wires crossed about the meeting time.”
Band 8 sentence
“Because the instructions were ambiguous, we got our wires crossed and completed the task twice.”
Collocations
- get one's wires crossed about/over something
- their wires got crossed
Word family
Common mistakes
We wires crossed about the date.→We got our wires crossed about the date.
Our wire got crossed.→Our wires got crossed.
Say it for a higher band
5misunderstand→6have a misunderstanding→7+get one's wires crossed
Synonyms
misunderstand each other
Easily confused
miss the point
“He completely missed the point of the lecture.”
Related words
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In Communication
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