bark up the wrong tree

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Fig. to make the wrong choice; to ask the wrong person; to follow the wrong course. (Alludes to a dog in pursuit of an animal, where the animal is in one tree and the dog is barking at another tree.) If you think I'm the guilty person, you're barking up the wrong tree. The hitters blamed the team's bad record on the pitchers, but they were barking up the wrong tree.

See also: bark, tree, up, wrong

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