misinterpret

Etymology

It is formed from English mis- + interpret.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The prefix mis-, "badly, wrongly", is from Old English mis-, from Proto-Germanic *missa- (“divergent, astray”).^[3] Interpret is from Old French interpreter (“to explain; to translate”) and directly interpretor (“to explain, expound, translate”),^[3][2][7][8] from interpres (“agent, broker, explainer, translator”), from inter (“between”) and a second element of uncertain origin.^[3][8][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To interpret wrongly, misunderstand, draw a wrong inference from: 1547, in the dedicatory epistle of Robert Recorde's Urinal of Physick.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also has 1547,^[4] Etymonline and Dictionary.com the 1580s.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its first meaning, covering both understanding something wrongly and explaining it wrongly to others.^[2][4] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to explain to a wrong sense", with a quotation from Ben Jonson.^[9] The nouns misinterpretation and misinterpreter followed in the late 16th century, and the adjective misinterpretable in the early 17th.^[5]

Timeline

• 1547 – to interpret wrongly; to draw a wrong inference from.^[2][4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To understand wrongly; to take in the wrong sense: She misinterpreted his silence as anger.^[4][10][2]
2. To give an incorrect interpretation of; to explain wrongly or misleadingly.^[4][10]

Word family

• misinterpretation
• misinterpreter
• misinterpretable

Related words

• interpret
• interpreter

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins