Misunderstand

How to spell misunderstand

13 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce misunderstand

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does misunderstand mean?

1. verbTo fail to grasp correctly the meaning or intention of something or someone.

Misunderstand in a sentence

• People often misunderstand sarcasm when it is written in a text message.

• It is easy to misunderstand instructions that are given quickly over the phone.

Where does misunderstand come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built from two native English elements joined to a very old verb. The base, 'understand', comes from the Old English understandan, which literally meant something like 'to stand among' or 'to stand in the midst of', from under and standan 'to stand'. Scholars believe the early sense was 'to stand close to' and so 'to grasp the meaning of', the way we still say we 'get' or 'follow' an idea. To this verb English added the prefix mis-, a long-standing Germanic element meaning 'wrongly' or 'badly', the same mis- found in mistake, misjudge, and mislead. The combined form had emerged by the time of Middle English, meaning to take a meaning in the wrong way. Because both halves are ordinary English words, the spelling trap is purely about remembering that there is a single 's' in mis- followed immediately by the 'u' of 'understand', with no doubling and no break.

How the word is built

• mis- (wrongly, badly)
• under- (among, beneath)
• stand (to take, comprehend, from Old English standan)