misunderstand
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to take (words, statements, etc.) in a wrong sense; understand wrongly.
- Synonyms:
- misinterpret, misapprehend, misconstrue
-
to fail to understand or interpret rightly the words or behavior of.
verb
Other Word Forms
- misunderstander noun
Etymology
Origin of misunderstand
First recorded in 1150–1200, misunderstand is from the Middle English word misunderstanden. See mis- 1, understand
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.
To treat it as a separate category is to misunderstand the American story itself.
“I have communicated with manufacturers to the extent that any ambiguities or misunderstandings may have existed. I think they’ve been dissipated,” MacKinnon says.
Yet, when he finally got up the bravery, when he spoke to her directly, there was no misunderstanding.
From Literature
“From what we see working with clients, Social Security leveling can be helpful, but it’s easy to misunderstand,” said Joon Um, a certified financial planner at Secure Tax & Accounting, Inc.
From MarketWatch
Many of Lam’s forays into modernism, into the 1940s—dependent, almost to the point of parody, on Picasso—are schematic misunderstandings of Cubism’s spatial complexities.
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.
