Arrested

How to spell arrested

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce arrested

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does arrested mean?

1. verbSeized and held by the police or another legal authority.
2. adjectiveStopped or held back in progress or growth.

Arrested in a sentence

• verb

  The suspect was arrested outside the bank on Friday evening.

• adjective

  The patient showed signs of arrested development after the illness.

• verb

  Two protesters were arrested for blocking the motorway.

• adjective

  The coach noted the player's arrested growth after the long injury.

Where does arrested come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the past form of the verb arrest, which came into English in the late 1300s from the Old French arester, meaning to stop, stay, or detain. The French verb grew out of the Vulgar Latin arrestare, formed from the prefix ad-, meaning to or toward, joined to restare, meaning to remain or stand still. So at its literal heart the word simply means to make something stay put, whether that is a fleeing suspect, a runaway process, or even one's attention. The legal sense of seizing a person by authority of the law developed early and became the dominant meaning, while the older idea of halting survives in phrases like arrested development and an arrested heartbeat. The same restare root quietly sits inside the everyday word rest, which is a useful memory hook, since the double r at the start and the single s of rest are exactly where the spelling slips.

How the word is built

• ar- (from Latin ad-, to)
• rest (from restare, to stay, stop)
• -ed (past tense suffix)