misinterpret

Universal Words verb [VN] ~ sth (as sth / doing sth) to understand sth/sb wrongly SYNMISCONSTRUE, MISREAD: His comments were misinterpreted as a criticism of the project. * She deliberately misinterpreted the question. compareINTERPRET misinterpretation noun [U,C]: A number of these statements could be open to misinterpretation (= could be understood wrongly). * a gross misinterpretation of the facts