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construe
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  • Maybe I wouldn't have been quite so alarmed if I'd understood a little better what wasn't clear to me at the time: that I was a minor, and that my parent or guardian had to be present at an official interview—which was why anyone even vaguely construed as my advocate had been called in.  (source)
    construed = thought of
  • For Steve Farese, a single bullet fired into one's husband's back counted as a trivial offense: a human being could hardly think up a thing to do that Farese couldn't construe as innocent.  (source)
    construe = understand in a particular way
  • Your drowsiness might well be construed as laziness.  (source)
    construed = interpreted
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Show 10 more with 5 word variations
  • He warned Gabriel and Fareed Barakat to avoid using any tactic on their prisoner that might remotely be construed as torture.  (source)
    construed = interpreted
  • Nor can there be strict rules for how the judges will construe the offenses.  (source)
    construe = understand
  • Pleasantly giddy from the odor of plants and the sultry warmth of the shop, which made his eyes water after the cold outdoors, he completed the transaction with a happy, pounding heart, construing his modest effort as bold, adventurous, and helpful, and secretly ascribing symbolic importance to it.†  (source)
    construing = understanding something to have a specific meaning
  • construes 'wea' as nom abs.†  (source)
    construes = understands something to have a specific meaning
  • Meseem'd, That, while she spake her image all did burn, And in her eyes such fullness was of joy, And I am fain to pass unconstrued by.†  (source)
    unconstrued = not interpreted as having a specific meaning
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unconstrued means not and reverses the meaning of construed. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
  • Is that correctly construed?  (source)
    construed = interpreted
  • Sending other men to do his office ...some might construe that as a grave insult.†  (source)
    construe = understand something to have a specific meaning
  • Tho' some of these caprices of the pit could not but be observed by their object, yet were they beyond the construing of such a nature.†  (source)
    construing = understanding something to have a specific meaning
  • CROMWELL Is that what the world in fact construes from it?†  (source)
    construes = understands something to have a specific meaning
  • It was impossible to know what action might later be construed as a crime.  (source)
    construed = understood something to have a specific meaning
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