Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use interpret in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb

Interpret means to decode the meaning of a topic and then act, whether to continue researching the topic, follow through, act in opposition, or further the understanding through sharing an interpretation. Example: “The actor interpreted the character of Hamlet with great skill.”

Examples of interpret by meaning

verbTo explain or tell the meaning of; to translate orally into intelligible or familiar language or terms. applied...

  • to interpret an Indian speech

verbTo apprehend and represent by means of art; to show by illustrative representation.

  • The actor interpreted the character of Hamlet with great skill.
  • The way the musician interpreted a sonata was quite special.
  • an artist interprets a landscape

verbTo convey what a user of one language is saying or signing, in real time or shortly after that person has finished...

  • He interpreted at the meeting between the Chinese and French associates.

More sentences with interpret

  • The report was riddled with so much corporate doublespeak that it was impossible to interpret.From the entry doublespeak
  • How the stock market interprets events has real consequences.From the entry how
  • The courts interpret the law but should not make it.From the entry law
  • A simple nonparsing algorithm interprets the input string.From the entry nonparsing
  • At the same time, the kinds of affectivities evoked in us, such as fear and gratitude, also depend partly on how we envision and interpret the objects in question.From the entry affectivity
  • Trump and MAGA world interpret this, and not without cause, as giving them carte blanche.2025 March 20, Peter Wehner, “Trump’s Appetite for Revenge Is Insatiable”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 20 Mar 2025. From the entry carte blanche
  • LabVIEW will interpret one- or two-character codes following the backslash character, as shown in Table 2.1.2019, Richard Jennings, LabVIEW Graphical Programming, Fifth Edition, page 91. From the entry unprintable
  • So how to interpret the purported re-caliphization of Iraq and Syria?2014, William Miles, The Islamic State won’t find it easy to wipe away post-colonial borders. From the entry caliphization
  • Is there a theory of interpreting, or a set of distinct theories of interpreting?2013, Carmen Millán, Francesca Bartrina, The Routledge Handbook of Translation Studies, Routledge, →ISBN, page 66. From the entry interpreting
  • We interpret this frequently discussed occurrence as a lack of respect for the biotrophism of the femur.2012, E. Morscher, Endoprosthetics, page 272. From the entry biotrophism
  • Finally, when interpreting accidents as events “out of thin air”, there are, in fact, phantom jams.2012, Martin Treiber, Arne Kesting, Traffic Flow Dynamics, Data, Models and Simulation, page 569. From the entry phantom jam
  • The overall effect is of a derogatory portrayal of vegans and veganism that we interpret as ‘vegaphobia’.2011 March, Matthew Cole, Karen Morgan, “Vegaphobia: derogatory discourses of veganism and the reproduction of speciesism in UK national…. From the entry vegaphobia
  • The lines on the spearthrower interpret the Journey of the Great Snake Liru, a Dreamtime ancestor.2010, Dale Kerwin, Aboriginal Dreaming Paths and Trading Routes: The Colonisation of the Australian Economic Landscape, page 10. From the entry spearthrower
  • The epitype does not displace the primary type it is to interpret, but rather supplements it.2010, Philippe Bouchet, Ellen E. Strong, “Chapter 6: Historical Name-Bearing Types in Marine Molluscs: An Impediment to Biodiversity…. From the entry epitype
  • Now a new study confirms that confusion about interpreting living wills prevails in prehospital settings, as well.2009 February 24, Jane E. Brody, “Putting Muscle Behind End-of-Life Wishes”, in New York Times. From the entry prehospital
  • Qasimov interprets the plight of Majnun using one of the 24 different mughams specified by Hajibeyov.2009 March 1, Meline Toumani, “For the Love of Layla”, in New York Times. From the entry mugham
  • The idea that texts or facts speak for themselves —interpret me no interpretations—is weapons-grade stupidity.2007, Tad Waddington, Lasting Contribution: How to Think, Plan, and Act to Accomplish Meaningful Work, Agate Publishing, →ISBN, page 75. From the entry weapons-grade
  • Federal agencies then often further interpret government-wide information policy to fit their organizational context.2007, Leon Osterweil, Lynette I. Millett, Joan D. Winston, Social security administration electronic service provision. From the entry multibureau
  • This is a highly descriptive and relevant way in which to interpret this life-stage.2007, Anne Grinyer, Young People Living With Cancer: Implications for Policy and Practice. From the entry thresholder
  • A web browser interprets an HTML document to display a web page.2001, Beth Brown, Bruce Presley, Elaine Malfas, A Guide to Web Authoring Using Microsoft FrontPage 2000, Lawrenceville Press, →ISBN. From the entry web browser
  • A wireframe is transparent in nature, requiring some skill and expertise in interpreting the model.2001, Philip D. Rufe, Fundamentals of Manufacturing, →ISBN, page 153. From the entry wireframe
  • If one interprets the cursūs at Stonehenge (and elsewhere in England) within Indo-European heritage (see e.g.2000, Raimo Anttila, Greek and Indo-European Etymology in Action: Proto-Indo-European *aǵ- (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory; 200)…. From the entry cursūs
  • Berkeley himself knew that we interpret our experience in spatio-temporal, objective terms.1999, Simon Blackburn, Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy (Oxford University Press paperback), ch. 7 section 6: "Kant’s…. From the entry grist to the mill
  • Detecting the enhanced greenhouse effect has a strong parallel in trying to interpret the paleoclimatic record.1995, Climate Research Committee, Natural Climate Variability on Decade-to-century Time Scales, →ISBN, page 172. From the entry paleoclimatic
  • That she could unpack, decode, index, retrieve, and interpret my reference at all was an unmodelable miracle.1995, Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2, Vintage (2019), page 198. From the entry unmodelable
  • The index of attributes given below makes it quite easy both to compose and interpret florigraphic “documents.”1988, “The Language and Meanings of Flowers”, in The Complete Book of Fortune, Blaketon Hall Limited, →ISBN, page 571. From the entry florigraphic
  • These sounds Darley interprets as Memnon’s yearning matin song to his mother Aurora, generative and diurnal originatrix.1978, Leslie Brisman, Romantic Origins, Ithaca, N.Y.; London: Cornell University Press, →ISBN, page 217. From the entry originatrix
  • Also, the stimulater material must be properly selected to eliminate confusion in interpreting the data.1976, A Titan Exploration Study, page IR-80. From the entry stimulater
  • CHARTOMANCY: Divination by writing or interpreting inscriptions, sometimes of mysterious origin.[1973, Walter B. Gibson, Litzka R. Gibson, The Complete Illustrated Book of Divination and Prophecy, London: Souvenir Press, published…. From the entry chartomancy
  • Rodriguez Marín considers an F, interpreting the whole as: La Condesa doña Leonor de Milán, á Fernando.1913, Henry Alfred Todd, Romanic Review, volume 4, number 1, page 140. From the entry postplace
  • We call this “neuralese” because unlike English words, these high-dimensional vectors are likely quite difficult for humans to interpret.2025 April 3, Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland, Romeo Dean, “AI 2027”, in AI 2027. From the entry neuralese
  • Republicans and Democrats interpret individualism differently, and those divides are more pronounced than ever in our deeply polarized political climate.2020 May 19, Scottie Andrew, “America’s response to the coronavirus is the most American thing ever”, in CNN, archived from the original…. From the entry divide
  • How can we interpret this attention to the “harmony between order and form” that shaped the lesson review in Japan?2020, Maria G. Bartolini Bussi et al., “Mathematics Teachers’ Cultural Beliefs: The Case of Lesson Study” (chapter 5), in Despina Potari…. From the entry Yamatologist
  • Although difficult to interpret, small shellies may hold the key to understanding the origins of shelled and biomineralised groups of animals.2018, Mark Carnall, “Unidentifiable fossils: palaeontological problematica”, in The Guardian. From the entry small shellies
  • Consider the case of expressives, where no prior knowledge of the speaker’s attitudes are required to interpret the utterance.2017, Tammi Leann Stout, An investigation of projection and temporal reference in Kaqchikel (dissertation for the University of Texas at…. From the entry expressive

Meaning of interpret

  1. verb To decode the meaning of a topic and then act, whether to continue researching the topic, follow through, act in opposition, or further the understanding through sharing an interpretation.
  2. verb To explain or tell the meaning of; to translate orally into intelligible or familiar language or terms. applied especially to language, but also to dreams, signs, conduct, mysteries, etc.
  3. verb To apprehend and represent by means of art; to show by illustrative representation.

Full definition of interpret

Questions about interpret in a sentence

How do you use interpret in a sentence?
Interpret is used as a verb. For example: “The actor interpreted the character of Hamlet with great skill.”
What is a short sentence with interpret?
“an artist interprets a landscape”
What does interpret mean?
Interpret means to decode the meaning of a topic and then act, whether to continue researching the topic, follow through, act in opposition, or further the understanding through sharing an interpretation.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: interpret (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use interpret in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/interpret. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.