Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US black) to misbehave.

1938		H. Morand ‘Don’t Start No Stuff’ 🎵 You seems to be a mellow frail / You get down wrong we’ll all go to jail.
1972		Milner & Milner Black Players 220: If I get down wrong at your momma’s house she gon’ whup my ass just like my own momma would.

1. (also head in wrong) to irritate, to annoy.

1910		Spokane Press (WA) 22 Sept. 7/3: Say, kiddo, I begin to think [...] that you are in wrong with yourself.
1914		Jackson & Hellyer Vocab. Criminal Sl. 24: clean [...] Example: ‘He headed in wrong with that bunch and got cleaned.’.
1922		E.E. Cummings Enormous Room (1928) 32: ‘Maybe we’d better ring off, or you’ll get in wrong with —’ he indicated t-d with a wave of his head.

2. to blunder, to get oneself into trouble.

1915		D. Lowrie My Life out of Prison 78: You’re getting yourself in dead wrong writing this junk for the papers, [...] we’ll make it mighty hot for you.
1921		Dos Passos Three Soldiers 48: ‘Oh, I mustn’t get in wrong. Oh, I mustn’t get in wrong,’ he kept saying to himself.
1931		O. Strange Law O’ The Lariat 135: I’d do it myself an’ be a heap pleased to, but it’d get me in wrong with the girl.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 66: I like you and I don’t want to see you get in wrong.
1956		I. Fleming Diamonds Are Forever (1958) 64: Don’t go and get in wrong with the mob.
2002		T.F. McGovern Alcohol Problems in the US 7: Therefore we did not wish to get in wrong with the medical profession by pronouncing alcoholism a disease entity.