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MISUNDERSTOOD
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Wrongly understood
Example:
a misunderstood question
Classified under:
Similar:
ununderstood (not understood)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Past simple / past participle of the verb misunderstand
Context examples:
Everything was a friend, or bore her thoughts to a friend; and though there had been sometimes much of suffering to her; though her motives had often been misunderstood, her feelings disregarded, and her comprehension undervalued; though she had known the pains of tyranny, of ridicule, and neglect, yet almost every recurrence of either had led to something consolatory: her aunt Bertram had spoken for her, or Miss Lee had been encouraging, or, what was yet more frequent or more dear, Edmund had been her champion and her friend: he had supported her cause or explained her meaning, he had told her not to cry, or had given her some proof of affection which made her tears delightful; and the whole was now so blended together, so harmonised by distance, that every former affliction had its charm.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
It was owing to him, to his reserve and want of proper consideration, that Wickham's character had been so misunderstood, and consequently that he had been received and noticed as he was.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Ruth misunderstood his slang, and reverted to cigarettes.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
But I do assure you that he must be entirely misunderstood, if he can ever appear to say an unjust thing of any woman at all, or an unkind one of me.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
She should see them henceforward with the closest observance; and wretchedly as she had hitherto misunderstood even those she was watching, she did not know how to admit that she could be blinded here.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
But I am willing to hope the best, and that his character has been misunderstood.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Thus, the pair of lovers could be jarred apart by misunderstood motives, by accident of fate, by jealous rivals, by irate parents, by crafty guardians, by scheming relatives, and so forth and so forth; they could be reunited by a brave deed of the man lover, by a similar deed of the woman lover, by change of heart in one lover or the other, by forced confession of crafty guardian, scheming relative, or jealous rival, by voluntary confession of same, by discovery of some unguessed secret, by lover storming girl's heart, by lover making long and noble self-sacrifice, and so on, endlessly.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
The very painful reflections to which this thought led could only be dispersed by a dependence on the effect of that particular partiality, which, as she was given to understand by his words as well as his actions, she had from the first been so fortunate as to excite in the general; and by a recollection of some most generous and disinterested sentiments on the subject of money, which she had more than once heard him utter, and which tempted her to think his disposition in such matters misunderstood by his children.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
He did not repeat his persuasion of their not marrying—and from that, I am inclined to hope, he might have been misunderstood before.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
