wide of the mark

Definitions

1. Of a projectile: missing the target.
2. (Very) inaccurate.
   idiomatic

Examples

“Each had a gun, and the three had been shooting at a number⟳ of rabbits. Only Werner had been successful, the others shooting wide of the mark⟳.”

“In most duels, both men usually felt that honor was satisfied even when their shots went wide of the mark⟳, and very often both duelists purposely shot into the air or the ground. But this time both men [Andrew Jackson and Charles Dickinson] meant to shoot⟳ to kill⟳.”

“Well, I suppose⟳ you could say⟳ the weatherman was wide of the mark⟳ again then!”

“Prov[erb]. Acertadole ha Pédro a la cogujada, que el rabo lleva tuérto: Peter has hit the lark, for her tail is awry. An expreſſion in deriſion, when a man is wide of the mark⟳.”

“[O]ur conjectures were like⟳ arrows ſhot in the dark—they were wide of the mark⟳—till an old gentleman came into the room, who after affixing his ſpectacles on the ſuperior part of an aquiline noſe, told us—"he ſmelt a rat!"”

“I do know⟳, though, that the cumulative effect of all these three- and five-minute film clips, with their almost unvarying implicit deference to the importance of purely military solutions (despite a few commentators' disclaimers to the contrary), and with their catering (in part unavoidably) to a popular democracy's insistent desire to view⟳ even as unbelievably complicated a war as this one in emotional terms (our guys against their guys), is surely wide of the mark⟳, and is bound to provide⟳ these millions of people with an excessively simple, emotional and military-oriented view⟳ of what is, at best, a mighty unsimple situation.”

CEFR level