misinterpret
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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:
What’s more, it’s easy to misinterpret overpricing for part of the market as an indication that everything is a bubble.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026
"It was more about me being excited about the game, which I think people started to misinterpret as being absolute promises. And I wasn't smart enough to realise that."
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2026
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
So much comes into my head at night when I’m alone, or during the day when I’m obliged to put up with people I can’t abide or who invariably misinterpret my intentions.
From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
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
“We’re alone,” she tells someone who misinterprets her faith as something to ward off loneliness.
From Salon ● Feb. 5, 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
She later said her comments had been misinterpreted.
From Barron's ● May 11, 2026
This could be especially helpful when individual signals are weak, unclear, or easily misinterpreted.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 15, 2026
West later tweeted that his comments had been misinterpreted and that he "brought up the 400 years point because we can't be mentally imprisoned for another 400 years".
From BBC ● Apr. 7, 2026
Some have reported being hung up on when a 988 counselor misinterpreted their silence to mean they’d walked away.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 1, 2026
She denounced it as a “hodgepodge of plagiarism pulled from here, a bit from there, the whole misinterpreted and sensationalized to give color to the red-flag word SPIES.”
From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield
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
Dr Lee has accused the prosecution of misinterpreting his research and he has since published an update discounting a link between marks on the skin and air embolisms.
From BBC ● Feb. 4, 2025
“Oh dear, I hope you’re not too offended,” the dog continued, misinterpreting my silence.
From "Hollow City" by Ransom Riggs
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.
