misunderstood
part of speech
verb form (past and past participle of misunderstand); adjective (misunderstood)
meaning for a pupil
1) Misunderstood is the past of misunderstand: understood wrongly. tree →
2) A misunderstood person or thing is one people judge wrongly or do not really understand. tree →
sense in the lessons
In stories, a misunderstood character (like a lonely giant or a "monster") is not bad; others just do not understand them. In science, sharks, bats and spiders are often called misunderstood animals because people fear them more than they should.
examples
- This proves that, at the time when the book was written, tlie nature of the letters, or of some of them, was misunderstood. (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914)) tree →
- This passage was apparently misunderstood by some later writers, who imagined that Rabbi Akiba was the author of the Sefer Yetzirah attributed to Abraham. (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914)) tree →
- I misunderstood the homework and did the wrong page. tree →
- Bats are misunderstood animals; they eat lots of insects. tree →
- The giant in the story was lonely and misunderstood. tree →
- She felt misunderstood by her friends. tree →
- He had misunderstood the rules of the game. tree →
- The message was misunderstood. tree →
- I do not wish to be misunderstood. tree →
note
Same form for past simple and past participle: "I misunderstood", "I have misunderstood". Never "misunderstanded".
In the corpora
- Children who never greet or answer adults are often misunderstood as rude or upset, even when they are only shy.
- Messages can be saved, shared and misunderstood, so you never send what you would not say face to face.
- Things heard half through a door are often misunderstood and can be more frightening than the truth.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «misunderstood» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.