To misrepresent someone or something is to give a wrong picture of it, and the usual charge is that you did it on purpose — you made their opinion, or the situation, look other than it is. This is a serious, rather formal word. Lawyers and politicians use it. You can misrepresent a person’s views (make them sound crueler than they were), misrepresent the facts (leave out the part that spoils your case), or misrepresent yourself (pretend you are qualified when you are not). Though actually, in ordinary talk people sometimes use it for any unfair picture, even a clumsy one. In law the related noun is wider still: not every misrepresentation in a contract is a planned lie. The verb you are learning here still carries that taste of “you twisted it.”