From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmisinterpretmis‧in‧ter‧pret /ˌmɪsɪnˈtɜːprɪt $ -ɜːr-/ AWL verb [transitive] UNDERSTAND#to not understand the correct meaning of something that someone says or does, or of facts that you are considering SYN misread, misconstrue Some parts of the report could be misinterpreted.misinterpret something as something She had misinterpreted his silence as anger. —misinterpretation /ˌmɪsɪntɜːprɪˈteɪʃən $ -tɜːr-/ noun [countable, uncountable] a misinterpretation of the test results→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
misinterpret• Your friendliness could easily be misinterpreted.• Soares subsequently claimed that his remarks had been misinterpreted.• The £35,000-a-year ad rep told a London tribunal the detective misinterpreted his movements.• The conclusion at Geneva was to be misinterpreted, if not misunderstood, for years to come.• Some said voters might have misinterpreted innocent actions.• Too easy for audiences to misinterpret, it would have reasoned.• So in many ways misinterpreting the concept of core groups can be just as dangerous as ignoring their reality.• Delgado badly misinterpreted the statistics of the survey.• What happens if they misinterpret their programs?• A lot of people misinterpreted what I was saying, and have called me a racist.• Without recognising that knowledge of this kind is in play, we may misinterpret what is said about particular texts. 