Authored

How to spell authored

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce authored

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does authored mean?

1. verbWrote or created (a book, report, or document) as its originator.

Authored in a sentence

• She authored three novels before her thirtieth birthday.

• The committee authored a detailed report on housing costs.

Where does authored come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past-tense form of the verb 'author', which traces back to the Latin auctor, meaning an originator, a promoter, or one who causes something to grow. That noun came from the verb augere, 'to increase' or 'to cause to grow', so an auctor was literally one who made something come into being. The word reached English in the 1300s through Old French autor, and the spelling at first lacked an 'h'; the silent 'th' was inserted later by scholars who wrongly believed the word was linked to the Greek authentes, meaning a master or doer. For centuries 'author' was only a noun for a writer or creator, and the verb meaning 'to write or create' is the part that gives us 'authored'. The misplaced classical 'h' is exactly the trap, since the word is pronounced with a 'th' sound that the spelling does not obviously predict.

How the word is built

• auth(or) (from auctor: originator, creator)
• -ed (past-tense suffix)