Acquitted

How to spell acquitted

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce acquitted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does acquitted mean?

1. verbPast tense of acquit: formally judged to be not guilty of a criminal charge.
2. verbPast tense of acquit when used reflexively: behaved or performed in a particular way under pressure.

Acquitted in a sentence

• The jury acquitted him on every count after a short deliberation.

• The new manager acquitted herself well during the difficult meeting.

• The court acquitted the defendant once the evidence was discredited.

• He acquitted himself admirably in his first week on the job.

Where does acquitted come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the past tense of 'acquit', which came into English in the 1200s from the Old French 'aquiter', meaning 'to pay off' or 'to settle a debt'. That French verb traced back to the Latin 'quietare', 'to make quiet or at rest', built on 'quietus', meaning 'free, at rest, discharged'. The earliest English sense was about clearing a debt or obligation, and from there it shifted to the legal idea of clearing a person of a charge, declaring them free of guilt. The same Latin 'quietus' root also gives us the everyday words 'quiet' and 'quit', so an acquitted defendant is literally 'set at rest' from the accusation. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the prefix doubles the 'c' before 'q', and adding '-ed' doubles the final 't', giving the easily missed 'cc' and 'tt'.

How the word is built

• ac- (variant of ad-: to)
• quit (set free, release)
• -t- (doubled consonant)
• -ed (past tense suffix)