Meaning & use
misinterpret
To understand or explain something incorrectly, giving it a meaning it was not intended to have.
See it in a sentence
She misinterpreted his silence as anger, when he was actually just tired.
Readers sometimes misinterpret satire as a sincere statement of the author's views.
A note on using this word
Misinterpret usually implies an honest mistake in understanding, unlike distort, which suggests a deliberate change of meaning.
Words with a similar meaning
misreadmisunderstand
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Words with an opposite meaning
understand
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