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According to the American Heritage Dictionary:

• the past tense and past participle of the verb to wreak is wreaked, not wrought, which is an alternative past tense and past participle of work.

In the expression to wreak havoc , which means:

• to cause a lot of trouble or damage as in: strikes have wreaked havoc on local businesses. (TFD)

wrought has been used for decades before the alternative version with wreaked appeared as shown in Ngram.

According to the Collins Dictionary:

• 
  wrought is sometimes used as if it were the past tense and past participle of wreak as in the hurricane wrought havoc in coastal areas. Many people think this use is incorrect.

But according to the Oxford Learner's Dictionary the usage in the past tense of wrought (an archaic past tense of work) is idiomatic:

• 
  

  wrought something (formal or literary) (used only in the past tense) caused something to happen, especially a change:

  
  
  
  
  
  • This century wrought major changes in our society.
  
  
  • The storm wrought havoc in the south.
  
  
  
  

Questions:

1)Isn't "wrought" in "wrought havoc" just misunderstood as the wrong past tense of "wreak"?

2) Isn't "wrought havoc", as a consequence, grammatically and idiomatically correct as "wreaked havoc" is?

in other words, what happened to "wrought and wreaked"? Why do lexicographers think that people misunderstand their usage?

Here's an Ngram chart that tracks the frequency in Google Books search results of "wrought havoc" (blue line) versus "wreaked havoc" versus "worked havoc" (green line) for the period 1800–2005:

Although "worked havoc" has, since the late 1800s, been consistently less common than "wrought havoc," both show the same hill-like trajectory, rising between 1880 and and 1920, peaking between 1920 and 1940, and declining between 1940 and 2000. This shared behavior strongly suggests that people who used "wrought havoc" understood it in the same sense that they understood "worked havoc"—as meaning "to create or produce or effect."

In contrast, the sense of wreaked in the phrase "wreaked havoc" is a rather late addition to the dictionary-approved definitions of that word. Here is the entry for wreak in Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary (2003):

wreak vt (bef. 12c) 1 a archaic : AVENGE b : to cause the infliction of (vengeance or punishment) 2 : to give free play or course to (malevolent feeling) 3 : BRING ABOUT, CAUSE {wreak havoc}

The crucial definition 3 is rather odd in that it presents wreak as an objectively neutral synonym for "bring about" or "cause" despite (1) being posed in the company of havoc in the example usage, (2) having as its only other current meanings the inflicting of vengeance or punishment and the giving of free rein to malevolent feeling, and (3) strongly suggesting to the unschooled ear a connection to the (objectively unrelated) verb wreck.

As recently as the Fourth Collegiate (1931), wreak had only one listed definition:

wreak v. t. To execute in vengeance or passion; inflict.

The Fifth Collegiate (1936) revamps its entry for wreak, producing something akin to the Eleventh Collegiate's first two non-archaic definitions, but with no hint of the crucial third definition there:

wreak v. t. 1. To give free play or free course to (wrath); as, to wreak one's resentment on the innocent. 2. To inflict or exact (vengeance); as to wreak vengeance on an enemy.

The third definition doesn't arrive until the Seventh Collegiate (1963), and it appears in a form that still suggests something dangerous about the "bringing about" that wreaking implies:

3 : CAUSE, INFLICT

Finally, the Eighth Collegiate (1973) adopts the neutral language that all subsequent editions have retained:

3 : to bring about : CAUSE {wreak havoc}

As you can see in the Ngram chart, the period 1960–2000 is the period of steep growth in Google Books matches for "wreaked havoc." It appears that either Merriam-Webster recognized this trend early in its development or actively promoted it (or both).

In any case, I can't see how the skyrocketing usage of "wreaked havoc" in its sense of "caused or brought about havoc" in any way undermines prior and contemporaneous use of "wrought havoc." It also seems clear that, during the heyday of "wrought havoc" and "worked havoc," "wreaked havoc" was not widely used as an alternative to those formulations, which makes the idea that "wrought havoc" was somehow an erroneous rendering of "wreaked havoc" extremely implausible.

As a final note, I want to point out that the most widely used expression for "bring about havoc" during most of the period 1800–2005 was "played havoc" (the yellow line in this version of the Ngram chart):

The rise and fall of "played havoc" very nearly mirrors the corresponding up and down of "wrought havoc" and "worked havoc." The circumstantial evidence is thus very strong that "wreaked havoc" made its gains at the expense of the other three phrases tracked in this Ngram chart.

Let us not forget inanimate objects can be personified allowing a hurricane to have wrought in the context of creation.

However in the destructive association with havoc, "wreaked" being the more destructive term is more appropriate if the intent of the speaker is to convey the damage resulting from havoc.

The association "wrought havoc" may then be defined as the creation of destruction which is legitimate in use also should this instead be the intent of the speaker.

Although both are grammatically correct in use, due to contextual differences they are not interchangeable to convey they same thought.

Based on personal experience, the degree of scholarly knowledge one needs to display in choosing which of several words to use in the case of "wreaked vs wrought" depends upon the setting.

In a room full of etymologists one might desire to be drawn into a technical discussion about all aspects of the previous and present use of the words.

In a simple conversation or in a news story in a setting where most who see or read the word are linguistic laypersons, it is absurd to be concerned about which is correct.

Indeed, one could wind up needing a valium or Xanax before daring to write or to speak.

Let's begin by clarifying some definitions. As usual etymonline.com is a helpful resource for identifying early attested usage and meaning.

Wrought is a past participle for work. It's generally archaic, since we would say "worked" in modern contexts. The old Middle English forms of "work" are still present in modern usages like:

• "Wrought Iron" for worked iron


• "what God has wrought" quoted from the King James version


• "Playwright" a craftsman of plays ( Millwright, Shipwright, etc )

Wreak comes to English from a different path originating from words for "drive" and "push" (you could argue for a PIE connection), and it enters English with a sense of Avenge, Punish, & Inflict.
Its modern connections are to "Wreck" & "Wrack".

So how does this impact your question?

First of all:
The two can be grammatically and idiomatically correct in the same context.
"The storm (wrought/wreaked) havoc" each create a meaningful sentence.
Just like "the the storm is (working/wreaking) havoc" each create a meaningful sentence. Either usage conveys the meaning that destruction has happened.

So "(wrought/wreaked) havoc" are interchangeable... Well sort of...
The 2 sentences do have different semantic meanings, for the simple reason that the two words have different semantic meanings.

So it's perhaps most appropriate to say that the two idioms are interchangeable. As long as you consistently use one formation ( work/working/wrought ) or the other ( wreak / wreaking / wreaked ) within a single conversation then that usage is legitimate (and can be attested to public usage throughout the 20th century).

The grammatical and logical pitfall is mixing the metaphors.

If you say today that "the storm is working havoc", then it would be wrong tomorrow to say that "it wreaked havoc".

If you say today that "the Storm is wreaking havoc", then it would be wrong tomorrow to say that "it wrought havoc".

Subquestion - "Why do they say wrought at all instead of worked?"

"Work" is an oddball in a few senses.

• It had been a strong (or irregular) verb, that became a regular verb, yet its original form is still retained for a narrow context.




• It is both a verb (the action of labor) and a noun (representing the product of its own verb form) .




• When we speak directly of the verb itself we always use the regular form for its past tense, unless we speak of it in the context of its noun form.

Consider how wrong "I have wrought all day" feels. Even in the early 1800's that wasn't accepted usage. An Improved Grammar of the English Language
By Noah Webster declares that "Wrought is evidently obsolete" in 1843.

But within that same timeline wrought is frequently used in contexts like these (ngram "wrought by", "wrought upon", "finely wrought", and of course "wrought havoc" ).

So, broadly stated, wrought remains in modern usage for reflecting upon the result of effort. The results of iron working is wrought iron. The efforts of jewelers and craftsmen are finely wrought. Gold work has been wrought by a goldsmith. The results of any handiwork are hand wrought (not hand worked).
... and Devastation results when someone or something has wrought havoc.

At some point these usages will also fade out, either simply forgotten or written out of acceptability by limp-wristed grammarians... but until then cherish the battle scarred vitality of our proud old Strong Verbs.