Learn English – What does “not far wrong” mean

meaningpast-tensepresent-perfect

First, what does the sentence below mean?

He may not have been far wrong

Second, why do we use have rather than has?

Best Answer

To answer your second question first, as Mari-Lou A has already explained, "may" (just as "must", "can", "should", etc) is a modal verb and, as such, must be followed by infinitive.

As for your sentence "He may not have been far wrong", "far" is an adverb here.

far (adv.) - to a great extent, much (Merriam-Webster)

  • That car is far more expensive than ...
  • He is able to function far better than usual.
  • He felt far better yesterday.

So, your sentence means that "probably he wasn't so wrong"