9 Everyday Words That Everybody Is Using Completely Wrong

4. Perused

What People Think It Means: Glancing through something quickly, not paying attention to detail What It Actually Means: To read something, typically in a thorough or careful way Ah, the classic case of an utterly reversed definition. I€™m fairly certain this one is only mistaken so often because nobody actually knows what it means. I€™ve read about people perusing magazines and students perusing through math textbooks before an exam, and all of this led me to believe that peruse, in fact, means €œto skim over,€ because as a student I can verify that we generally have never actually perused our math textbooks. Since it has been so consistently misused, a secondary definition has become standard, except now the word has two completely contradictory meanings: either it€™s to look through casually, or to read thoroughly. Basically, just say €œread€ and tack on an adverb and be done with this mess of a word.