I read this in a contract " this agreement shall be construed, governed, interpreted and applied"

Construe and interpret are effectively redundant. Lawyers like that shit though. I imagine there is a narrow, narrow band of meaning that separates them in a legal context.

Lawyers draft docs like this to cover all bases, and to give judges options to agree with your side, and to prevent opposing counsel from claiming one narrow definition. For the purposes of informal interpretation, you can omit a redundancy. For more exacting stuff, do not omit anything, but repeat the only interpretation you have and place [sic] after the redundant word if there is nothing else available.

Had this conversation with an attorney, years ago.

Construed is like having something explained, interpreted can involve more than just the common explanation.

It’s kind of like haviing the second amendment explained to someone, or having it interpreted by a bunch of lawyers, to justify buyIng an anti aircraft gun, to hunt pheasant.

My dictionary says construed and interpreted are the same

Agreed.

It's a CYA thing