misinterpret
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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misinterprets,
present (3rd person singular)
-
misinterpreted,
past participle, past
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misinterpreting
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
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
-
have been misinterpretingperfect progressive
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has been misinterpretingperfect progressive
Past
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misinterpretedsimple
-
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
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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:
Derakhshan advises not to focus in on people's faces when presenting, as we can misinterpret their reactions.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
Parents can answer questions about their child — such as in the National Survey of Children’s Health — but can be biased or misinterpret questions, especially if English isn’t their first language.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 5, 2026
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
Mandarax had been known to garble or misinterpret quest instructions and cues, which could easily lead to fatal mistakes.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
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
In both cases, the judge profoundly misinterprets the law.”
From Salon ● Mar. 21, 2024
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
I put out my hand to get a slap from him, but he misinterprets that as a handshake attempt, so I take the initiative and turn it into a hug, a big smelly one.
From "It’s Kind of a Funny Story" by Ned Vizzini
There is also no way yet to determine whether the corals seen in the 1960s really were dead and later recovered, or whether the original survey simply misinterpreted what was there.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 15, 2026
She later said the comments had been misinterpreted.
From Barron's ● Jul. 6, 2026
“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
Lines of dialogue are followed by explanatory glosses, like the captions beneath photographs, so that they cannot be misinterpreted.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026
If these basic principles can be misinterpreted, it shouldn’t be surprising that more esoteric mathematics can be, too.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
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
But in recent times teachers have been expressing growing concerns about some local authorities and schools misinterpreting the nurture principles by removing all or any consequences.
From BBC ● Jun. 18, 2025
But landlord groups contend that inevitable evictions will only be delayed, since the vast majority of cases churning through the courthouses do not stem from a landlord misinterpreting the law.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2024
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
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
