English

Adjective

wide of the mark

1. (of a projectile) Missing the target
2. (idiomatic) inaccurate

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

Quotations

1969: 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's 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. - Michael Arlen, Living Room War

Synonyms

• off the mark

See also

• miss the mark