misinterpret
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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misinterprets,
present (3rd person singular)
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misinterpreted,
past participle, past
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misinterpreting
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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misinterpretsimple
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misinterpretssimple
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have misinterpretedperfect
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has misinterpretedperfect
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am misinterpretingprogressive
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are misinterpretingprogressive
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is misinterpretingprogressive
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have been misinterpretingperfect progressive
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has been misinterpretingperfect progressive
Past
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misinterpretedsimple
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had misinterpretedperfect
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was misinterpretingprogressive
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were misinterpretingprogressive
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had been misinterpretingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of misinterpret
Explanation
When you misinterpret something, you get it wrong. If you misinterpret another driver's wave as a friendly hello, you're probably missing the fact that he's trying to tell you one of your headlights has blown. Misinterpreting can be fun or embarrassing on a personal level––you can, say, misinterpret a boy's interest in your friend, and think he want to go out with you. But it can be devastating on an international level. During the Cold War, the US and the USSR had to be very careful about sending signals about nuclear readiness––the cost of misinterpreting could be a nuclear war.
Vocabulary lists containing misinterpret
mis-
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mis-
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Part 1 Vocabulary (Unit 3)
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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.
See Examples For:
It may omit relevant information while summarizing, mix up who is speaking and misinterpret context—such as missing nonverbal cues.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 5, 2025
It’s easy for students to misunderstand and misinterpret college award letters that specify the financial aid they will receive.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 31, 2025
Did “Walter Bloomberg” merely misinterpret a Fox News clip?
From Slate ● Apr. 8, 2025
“The problem is a lot of people misinterpret a lot of my dad’s work as schadenfreude, when it’s really not,” James said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 15, 2025
And if there is a reasonable chance that readers will misinterpret a statistical tendency as an absolute law, a responsible writer will anticipate the oversight and qualify the generalization accordingly.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
A superintelligent AI system that ignores human goals or misinterprets commands could, naysayers say, scramble people’s bank accounts, disrupt essential water and power supplies, or take over missile-launch systems.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
The court "misunderstands FIFRA's requirement, misinterprets the scope of FIFRA's preemption and ultimately leaves Durness without a remedy for the significant harms he has suffered."
From Barron's ● Jun. 25, 2026
Bentley introduced a detective who misinterprets the clues made available to the reader; his solution is proven wrong even though the same clues yield the correct answer.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026
The new research, Wen says, misinterprets these changes as caused by the core’s spin rather than to its fluctuating surface.
From Scientific American ● Jan. 25, 2023
Olly misinterprets my shiver and steps close to me to add his towel to my shoulders.
From "Everything, Everything" by Nicola Yoon
“In his zealous and highly scrutinized representation, Dershowitz made a spontaneous series of remarks before Congress that, he says, were misinterpreted by pundits,” Judge Britt Grant, a Trump appointee wrote for the 11th Circuit Court.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
“Now, because audiences can be so polarized, when you send out a message, you’ve really got to think about not only ‘How can this be interpreted?’ but also ‘How can this be misinterpreted?’
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026
She later said her comments had been misinterpreted.
From Barron's ● May 11, 2026
It was England who misinterpreted an on-field offside decision, causing a goal for Liverpool's Luis Diaz to be wrongly disallowed at Tottenham.
From BBC ● May 10, 2026
“Sara, you have seriously misinterpreted what we’re all about,” he said.
From "City Spies" by James Ponti
Ritholtz does exactly that, running through such surefire ways to wreck your wealth as ignoring taxes, paying excessive fees, misinterpreting data, overreacting to short-term trends, and trading too much.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
"Without accurate assessment tools, policymakers, developers and users risk misinterpreting what AI systems can actually do," he said.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 13, 2026
However, California State Parks said that plaintiffs’ attorneys are misinterpreting that passage.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 27, 2025
As rambling as it can be, misinterpreting “Die My Love” as anything other than Lawrence’s is impossible.
From Salon ● Nov. 7, 2025
Since there are serious consequences to misinterpreting these statements as absolute laws, a responsible writer should insert a qualifier like on average or all things being equal, together with a slightly or somewhat.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
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.
