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

Dabaie was asked by CNN whether the congressman’s comments can be construed as acknowledging that he cheated on his wife, while denying doing anything illegal.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 11, 2026

California law says its voter-ID rules “shall be liberally construed to permit voters and new registrants to cast a regular ballot.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 5, 2026

"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 • Feb. 25, 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

Fortunately these were in Italian, and so the obvious boredom of the foreign guests did not need to be construed as impoliteness.

From "Double Helix" by James D. Watson

Related Words

• define
• infer
• interpret
• parse
• translate