Verb

(en verb)

To explain or tell the meaning of; to expound; to translate orally into intelligible or familiar language or terms; to decipher; to define; -- applied especially to language, but also to dreams, signs, conduct, mysteries, etc.; as, to interpret the Hebrew language to an Englishman; to interpret an Indian speech.

* The Holy Bible, (w) i. 23.

Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

* The Holy Bible, (w) xli. 8.

And Pharaoh told them his dreams; but there was none that could interpret them unto Pharaoh.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-26, author=(Leo Hickman)

, volume=189, issue=7, page=26, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= How algorithms rule the world , passage=The use of algorithms in policing is one example of their increasing influence on our lives.

To apprehend and represent by means of art; to show by illustrative representation; as, an actor interprets the character of Hamlet; a musician interprets a sonata; an artist interprets a landscape.

To act as an interpreter.

Verb

(obsolete) To read over, or peruse.

*1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.11:

*:Over the dore thus written she did spye, / Bee bold : she oft and oft it over-red , / Yet could not find what sence it figured […].

To interpret something to a greater degree, or in a more positive way, than appropriate; read too in-depth; overinterpret; overanalyze.

*2005 , Hilde Heynen, ?Gulsum Baydar, Negotiating Domesticity :

To overread Plath's houses is to transform these biographical documents into spatial ones.

*2008 , H. Porter Abbott, The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative :

At the same time, we overread . That is, we find in narratives qualities, motives, moods, ideas, judgments, even events for which there is no direct evidence in the discourse.

*{{quote-news, 2009, January 20, Heather Timmons And Jeremy Kahn, Past Graft Is Tainting New India, New York Times citation

, passage=Did we just overread and overstate our place in the world? }}

To read too much or excessively.