Also wrongdoing. [f. as prec. + DOING vbl. sb.] The action of doing wrong or amiss, or the fact of wrong being done.
1. Transgression of or offence against the moral or established law; reprehensible action or behavior; evil-doing, misdoing; misconduct.
Rare before 19th c. In frequent use from c. 1860.
1480. Coventry Leet Bk., 444. The Priour & Couent … desiren restitucion of such wrongedoyng.
1547. Latimer, in Foxe, A. & M. (1563), 1352. He that is so obstacle and vntractable in wickednes and wronge doing.
1681. W. Robertson, Phraseol. Gen., 1355. To withstand the doing of wrong; to be against wrong doing, obsistere injuriæ.
1828–32. Webster.
1837. Ht. Martineau, Soc. Amer., III. 10. The idea of honour is such as to exclude all fear, except of wrong-doing.
1858. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., lxxv. II. 25. It is the rule of heaven, that wrong-doing shall bring sorrow.
1891. Farrar, Darkn. & Dawn, xxii. To act [thus] … would have been to betray uneasiness and confess wrongdoing.
2. A wrongful or blameworthy action.
1874. M. Creighton, Hist. Ess., i. (1902), 21. A wrong-doing of which it felt no guilt.
1899. Crockett, Kit Kennedy, 245. [She] seemed to have suffered for every body else’s wrongdoings.
