as in to miss
to fail to understand the true or actual meaning of
you misunderstood that poem because you took everything so literally
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Recent Examples of misunderstand
Interestingly, people often described fears that were based on misunderstanding how technology works – or fails to work.
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Alaina Vandervoort Burns, The Conversation, 17 Dec. 2025
Brenecki said that judges often face public backlash in such cases like Zarutska's, but many misunderstand the legal constraints in place.
—Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, FOXNews.com, 8 Dec. 2025
In a May interview with Metro months before she was chosen as a Kennedy Center honoree, Gaynor made headlines for her surprising response to a question about what people misunderstand about her.
—Meredith Kile, PEOPLE, 8 Dec. 2025
But that view misunderstands how the Senate’s debate rules actually work.
—Jeremy Dalrymple, Oc Register, 2 Dec. 2025
See All Example Sentences for misunderstand
Recent Examples of Synonyms for misunderstand
Verb
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The reason for the different numbers of missing and rescued given by police and Archival was not immediately clear.—
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Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.—
Verb
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There could be no mistaking that this was a significant mismatch.—
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Further investigation revealed that the victim was on board a northbound train, mistaking it for a southbound train.—
Verb
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The big risk as things stand is that an adversary misreads his mixed signals, oversteps, and triggers an escalation nobody wants.—
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Abrego Garcia’s attorneys pushed back in a Tuesday response filing, arguing that the government is misreading what the deportation order actually allows.—
Verb
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Some of the viral videos and social media posts have misconstrued publicly available information.—
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Ryan Heiden, a labor attorney working with the city from Milwaukee firm von Briesen & Roper, advised the committee against putting any intentions in writing, warning that it could be misconstrued if in the years to come the two departments do indeed merge.—
Verb
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Without it, the model can misinterpret complex visual cues.—
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If the brain misinterprets signals from the body, or if those signals are faulty, the brain may send out commands that cause harm.—
Verb
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That is true of leaders anywhere, but Israel’s history has predisposed some of its policymakers to focus excessively on day-to-day survival and to misapprehend or ignore strategic dynamics as a result.—
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But would her students, turned on everywhere by the dogma of political correctness, misapprehend Haynes’s aim?—
Cite this Entry
“Misunderstand.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/misunderstand. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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