Affected

How to spell affected

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce affected

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does affected mean?

1. verbPast tense of affect: had an influence on or made a difference to something.
2. adjectiveInfluenced or harmed by something, especially by damage, illness, or disruption.
3. adjectiveArtificial or unnatural in manner, put on to impress others.

Affected in a sentence

• verb

  The strike affected thousands of commuters across the city.

• adjective

  Relief workers delivered supplies to the affected villages after the flood.

• adjective

  His affected accent slipped whenever he forgot to keep up the act.

• verb

  Poor weather affected the harvest more than the farmers expected.

• adjective

  The doctor examined the affected joint for signs of swelling.

• adjective

  The critics dismissed her speech as affected and insincere.

Where does affected come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb afficere, meaning 'to do something to' or 'to influence', which was built from ad 'to, toward' and facere 'to do or make'. Its past participle affectus gave the sense of being moved or acted upon, and from that came the English verb 'affect'. English took the word in through Old French and Latin learning in the late Middle Ages, and 'affected' is simply its past and participial form. A separate but related thread gave the adjective 'affected' its meaning of 'put on for show': here the idea travelled from 'aiming at' or 'striving after' a manner to 'pretending to' one. The shared facere root links it to a whole family of everyday words such as 'effect', 'fact', and 'manufacture', and the spelling trap is precisely that 'affect' (the verb) and 'effect' (usually the noun) sound and look so alike.

How the word is built

• af- (variant of ad-: to, toward)
• fect (from facere: to do, make)
• -ed (past tense / adjective suffix)