Construe
Pronunciation
Critical Pronouncing Dictionary|entry=Construe|page=183|ppage=1|passage=Thoſe who ought to be the guardians of propriety are often the perverters of it. Hence Accidence for Accidents, Prepoſtor for Prepoſitor and Conſtur for Conſtrue...Alternative forms
Origin
From , from , from ; .
Related terms
Verb
- (transitive) To interpret or explain the meaning of something.
- 1954, w, w:A Man for All Seasons, The world must construe according to its wits; this court must construe according to the law.
- (grammar, transitive) To analyze the grammatical structure of a clause or sentence; to parse.
- 1988, Andrew Radford, Transformational grammar: a first course Chapter 8, Thus, in a sentence such as:
(113) John considers Fred to be too sure of himself
the italicised Reflexive himself can only be construed with Fred, not with John: this follows from our assumption that non-subject Reflexives must have an antecedent within their own S. Notice, however, that in a sentence such as:
(114) John seems to me — to have perjured himself
himself must be construed with John. - (grammar, ergative) To admit of grammatical analysis.
- (transitive) To translate.
- To infer.