Allotted

How to spell allotted

8 letters · 3 syllables

10 of the 23 people asked to spell allotted in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.

The most common mistake is alloted. The letters people get wrong are highlighted.

alloted allotted

What people typed instead

• alloted6 people
• alotted4 people

How to pronounce allotted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does allotted mean?

1. verbGave out or assigned as a share, portion, or allowance of something.

Allotted in a sentence

• Each speaker was allotted ten minutes for the presentation.

• The council allotted funds to repair the local roads.

Where does allotted come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the past tense of the verb 'allot', which English assembled from the Old French verb 'aloter', meaning 'to divide by lot' or 'to assign a share'. The heart of the word is 'lot', a very old Germanic term for an object cast or drawn to decide a matter by chance, the same sense that survives in 'drawing lots'. Over time the idea shifted from leaving a decision to chance toward deliberately apportioning something, so by the time it settled into English in the late 1500s 'allot' meant simply to give out as a share. The prefix is a softened form of Latin 'ad-', meaning 'to' or 'toward', which is why a single 'd' became the doubled 'l' you see at the front. The real spelling trap, however, lives at the end: like 'fitted' and 'spotted', a short stressed vowel before a single consonant forces that consonant to double before '-ed', giving the doubled 't' in 'allotted'.

How the word is built

• al- (variant of ad-, meaning 'to')
• lot (a share or portion)
• -ted (past-tense ending with doubled consonant)