CONSTRUE, verb transitive [Latin See Construct.] 1. To arrange words in their natural order; to reduce from a transposed to a natural order, so as to discover the sense of a sentence; hence, to interpret; and when applied to a foreign language, to translate; to render into English; as, to construe Greek, Latin or French. 2. To interpret; to explain; to show or to understand the meaning. I pray that I may not be so understood or construed. Thus we are put to construe and paraphrase our own words.
Source: Webster's 1828 American Dictionary ↗ · public-domain · returned verbatim, no AI