construed

American  

[kuhn-strood] / kənˈstrud /

adjective

1. interpreted or understood.

   Degrees from these “diploma mills” are often awarded based on vaguely construed life experience.

2. arrived at by inference or interpretation.

   Public interest must necessarily overlap with a correctly construed definition of “national interest.”

3. arranged or combined syntactically.

   Her soothing tones and delicate, thoughtfully construed statements only burrowed further and more painfully into his heart.

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verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of construe.

Other Word Forms

• unconstrued adjective

Etymology

Origin of construed

construe ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. )

Example Sentences

"Some may look at this incident as being somewhat playful, but it's hard to dissociate what could very easily be construed as animosity toward the police," he said.

From BBC

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

But it could be construed as creating a slightly misleading picture in terms of net spend on the first team.

From BBC

"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

Meanwhile, if announcements at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show “are construed as bullish ‘buy the news’ type events,” that could further energize investors, according to Klein.

From MarketWatch

Related Words

• define
• infer
• interpret
• parse
• translate