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construe

UK/kənˈstɹuː/US/kənˈstɹuː/
verbC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #11,963 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: construed, construing, construes

To construe is to take words as having a particular meaning. Construe it as an insult, wrongly construed, narrowly construed.

It is the standard verb of legal interpretation, where how a clause is construed decides the case. It is a doublet of construct, and both come from the Latin for piling things together.

Definitions of construe

  1. 1verbconstrueTo take words as having a particular meaning.C1

    “Her silence was construed as agreement, though she actually disagreed.”

construe is an interpreting.

Where it comes from

Latin construere means to pile together; construct is a doublet.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *strew-

  2. Latin

    construo — to relate grammatically

  3. Middle English

    construen

  4. English, today

    construe

From Middle English construen, from Latin construo (“to relate grammatically”), from Latin construo (“pile together”); a doublet of construct.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

construe in the wild

  • At a species level, the identity of the Hominina who made the trace is difficult to construe precisely; Australopithecus afarensis is the species most commonly proposed.

    Laetoli

  • The court adopted purposive construction as the means to construe patent claims.

    Whirlpool Corp v Camco Inc

  • The Court supported its decision not to rule the statute void for vagueness on its obligation to construe and not condemn Congress' laws.

    Skilling v. United States

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.