as in to misunderstand
to fail to understand the true or actual meaning of humor-challenged members of the audience misperceived the speaker's harmless joke as an insult to their organization

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Examples of misperceive in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web According to the researchers, these misperceptions may stop people from speaking up about their concerns and cause policymakers to misperceive how much their constituents care. Laura Schulte, Journal Sentinel, 28 Apr. 2023 Russian pilots could misperceive the escorts as offensive NATO warplanes and engage them, precipitating a disaster with unknown consequences. Rebeccah Heinrichs, National Review, 24 Feb. 2022 In this state, the concept extends to dog bites – even if the owner did not intend that Rover would bite anyone and did not anticipate that the dog might misperceive the victim’s intent or might remember the victim was hostile to him in the past. Donna Engle, baltimoresun.com/maryland/carroll, 8 May 2021 Americans often misperceive historical inequities as personal failures. Ed Yong, The Atlantic, 3 Aug. 2020

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'misperceive.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Thesaurus Entries Near misperceive

Cite this Entry

“Misperceive.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/misperceive. Accessed 31 Oct. 2024.

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!