construed

[ kuhn-strood ]

adjective

1. interpreted or understood:

   Degrees from these “diploma mills” are often awarded based on vaguely construed life experience.

2. arrived at by inference or interpretation:

   Public interest must necessarily overlap with a correctly construed definition of “national interest.”

3. arranged or combined syntactically:

   Her soothing tones and delicate, thoughtfully construed statements only burrowed further and more painfully into his heart.

verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of construe ( def ).

Other Words From

• un·con·strued adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of construed¹

construe ( def ) + -ed ²( def )

Example Sentences

That has been construed as a threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

From BBC

But in her ruling, Judge Chutkan argued that if she had kept the files under wraps, that could itself have been construed as election interference.

From BBC

Yu’s report called on the police department to ban “‘rites of passage’ that might be construed as hazing or disparate treatment towards probationary officers.”

From Los Angeles Times

“HB 1069 requires school librarians to remove books that contain anything that can be construed as ‘sexual conduct,’ with no consideration of the educational value of the work as a whole.

From Salon

Lee however remained undeterred by her illness and summoned the gumption and self-confidence to return to the mat after a brief hiatus, brushing aside the narrowly construed frameworks of athleticism.

From Salon

Related Words

• define
• infer
• interpret
• parse
• translate