construed
Americanadjective
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interpreted or understood.
Degrees from these “diploma mills” are often awarded based on vaguely construed life experience.
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arrived at by inference or interpretation.
Public interest must necessarily overlap with a correctly construed definition of “national interest.”
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arranged or combined syntactically.
Her soothing tones and delicate, thoughtfully construed statements only burrowed further and more painfully into his heart.
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of construed
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
That order explicitly said that nothing in it should be construed as creating a mandatory licensing regime.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 14, 2026
We believed the Constitution limited the federal government to the powers enumerated in it, and that these weren’t to be construed so as to deny our constitutional rights.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 8, 2026
"To the uninformed American listener, the ongoing talks between Denmark and Greenland might have been construed as if Greenland's secession from Denmark was imminent," said Greenland specialist Mikaela Engell.
From Barron's ● Jan. 13, 2026
It was called “constructive treason,” because there was no act, but courts construed such forms of speech to be treasonous.
From Slate ● Nov. 21, 2025
But he couldn’t remember, and besides it was impossible to know what action might later be construed as a crime.
From "The Red Pony" by John Steinbeck
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
