How to spot the use and abuse of the word ‘context’

'My comments about how much I dislike my family were taken outrageously out of context'. Shutterstock/Paper Trident

Everyone’s been in a debate when someone says: “You’re taking that out of context.” But what does it actually mean to understand something “in context”?

Appeals to context feel irrefutable. Of course we need context. But “context” is one of those ideas that seems obvious until you actually try to define it. What counts as context? Where does context end and the thing itself begin?