What's the difference between misconstrue and misunderstand?

Misconstrue


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To construe wrongly; to interpret erroneously.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Kramer has oversimplified and misconstrued statements by Rorschach, Beck, and Bohm; in reality, the criterion for the scoring of M responses in the Comprehensive System differs very little, if at all, from that suggested by Rorschach.
  • (2) But this argument misconstrues what is necessary to succeed in Iraq, and stubbornly ignores the facts of the broader strategic picture that we face.
  • (3) People have misconstrued what was in that report, particularly the IOC and international federations.
  • (4) Perhaps for all of the potential upsides there are still too many opportunities to fall foul of “death and gaffe watch” journalists waiting to pounce on a too-easily-misconstrued twitter picture.
  • (5) Interviewers must be tactful.” They need to try to clarify discrepancies and if they’re not convinced or the stories don’t add up, and the client has the right to explain anything that may have been misconstrued.
  • (6) Johnson, holding the press conference in the Foreign Office, said: “We can spend an awfully long time going over lots of stuff that I’ve written over the last 30 years … All of which, in my view, have been taken out of context, through what alchemy I do not know – somehow misconstrued that it would really take me too long to engage in a full global itinerary of apology to all concerned.
  • (7) On Wednesday three judges at the supreme court found the PSNI had “misconstrued” its legal powers to stop parades passing through or adjacent to the Short Strand area.
  • (8) On Wednesday, Nitschke’s legal team – led by Richard Niall QC after the death of Nitschke’s former lawyer Peter Nugent last month – said the medical board “misconstrued” its code of conduct when suspending Nitschke’s licence, and denied procedural fairness during the November hearing.
  • (9) The proposals were wilfully misconstrued as "a cap on rents", when they are nothing of the sort.
  • (10) Data in the frequency domain could be misconstrued, unless peculiarities of some acoustical measuring systems are understood.
  • (11) "It is regrettable a lot of facts and details got put out and misconstrued.
  • (12) That is, in at least some instances, one condition may have been mistaken for the other, and thus a factitious overlap or "sameness" misconstrued.
  • (13) The Vietnamese concepts of health and disease are presented, along with brief descriptions of certain folk medicines that are frequently misconstrued by American physicians.
  • (14) A spokesman added: "We never intended to promote our medicines for unauthorised indications but we can see how the communication could have been misconstrued especially if taken out of the context in which it written.
  • (15) We report a case of ventilator autocycling in a paralyzed patient secondary to an endotracheal cuff leak which was misconstrued as assisted ventilation.
  • (16) The principal influences investigated include the misconstrued emphasis given to the humanist ideology, which properly stresses the dignity of the individual; the social sciences' relativization of the cultural norms defining homosexuality; the influence of the mass media in disseminating these perspectives and thereby tending to create an acceptable image of homosexuality, and the tendency of all these changes to result in a substantial increase in public acceptance and tolerance of homosexuality.
  • (17) This paper argues 1) that an examination of cases shows that lying and deception are often morally equivalent, and 2) that Jackson's position is premised on a species of moral functionalism that misconstrues the nature of moral obligation.
  • (18) Standing alongside John Kerry , the US secretary of state, Johnson claimed his remarks had been misconstrued, that his past journalism had been taken out of context, and world leaders he had met since his appointment fully understood his past remarks.
  • (19) Fine, if he wants to spear me years later by deliberately misconstruing what I was saying to him.
  • (20) It wanted to make sure that the largest demonstration in the history of the US capital, demanding jobs and freedom and denouncing racism, was not misconstrued by the nation's enemies or potential allies.

Misunderstand


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To misconceive; to mistake; to miscomprehend; to take in a wrong sense.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Despite of the increasing diagnostic importance of the direct determination of the parathormone which is at first available only in special institutions in these cases methodical problems play a less important part than the still not infrequent appearing misunderstanding of the adequate basic disease.
  • (2) Illustration by Andrzej Krause Photograph: Guardian The Foreign Office attributed the forgotten boxes to "an earlier misunderstanding about contents" and stated that there needed to be an "improvement in archive management".
  • (3) Much criticism, though, is based on genuine misunderstanding or a wild misrepresentation of reality – even in the pages of prestigious newspapers.
  • (4) The Florida senator said: “This simplistic notion that ‘leave Assad there because he’s a brutal killer, but he’s not as bad as what’s going to follow him’ is a fundamental and simplistic and dangerous misunderstanding of the reality of the region.” It’s unclear though how much the actual debate about policy between the two senators stood out from the political carnival surrounding them.
  • (5) In this way, they will be better able to avoid misunderstandings and head off potential conflicts.
  • (6) Following references to the development of the discipline and of the possible misunderstandings involved in an interpretation of the term "integration", the author makes reference to the dialogue-like structure of integration.
  • (7) "Cameron's interpretation of Merkel's stance is partially based on a misunderstanding," said Stefan Kornelius, foreign editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung and author of an authorised Merkel biography.
  • (8) And she thought these treatments would cure her – a common misunderstanding of how addiction works.
  • (9) This will mean that if you are sacked because your boss takes against you or because of a misunderstanding, you will be on your own unless you can afford to pay for a lawyer or you are a member of a trade union.
  • (10) So we started asking them ridiculous questions about being single," says Lucas, "and the sheer number of misunderstandings about each other's lives felt like comedic material."
  • (11) Various kinds of false reports are defined, described, and grouped according to type: misunderstandings, misreporting, distortion through illness, distortion by design, professional error, misrepresentation, and a grouping of less common instances.
  • (12) A series of misadventures and misunderstandings lead him to Calgary, where the whole Messiah mix-up reaches its painful, and tuneful, climax.
  • (13) The risks involved in the misunderstanding of such an association are not without danger for the patient, particularly the risk of severe complication of possible coronary or carotid lesions, threatening survival; from this derives the necessity to decide automatically for a minimum of pre-surgery vascular investigations in the case of patients suffering from lung cancer.
  • (14) Following a thorough medical workup, the physician can best discharge his or her responsibility to the patient by paying attention to these possible misunderstandings.
  • (15) For London's mayor had not only long refused to meet the RMT leader, but only a month before rather encouraged the public to misunderstand him by making hay with Crow's supposedly hypocritical cruise trip and accusing him of "holding a gun" to the head of the capital ?
  • (16) Consequently, a misunderstanding of roles and distortion in perception, for whatever reason, may influence the outcome of care.
  • (17) One successful method to overcome these misunderstandings is education.
  • (18) I cannot risk a whole game, I am a long-term coach.” Puzzled glances around the room alerted the manager to the possibility of a misunderstanding.
  • (19) 176, 137--142] have no real meaning because of a serious methodological misunderstanding by the authors.
  • (20) But there is that fear that there could be that one moment of misunderstanding with a young man of colour and that young man may never come back.” De Blasio’s comments were delivered against a backdrop of continued protests in many cities against recent incidents of police brutality and charges of a lack of accountability for police officers who have killed civilians.