Beloved

How to spell beloved

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce beloved

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does beloved mean?

1. adjectiveDearly loved; cherished by many people.
2. nounA person who is dearly loved.

Beloved in a sentence

• adjective

  The beloved teacher retired after thirty years at the school.

• noun

  She wrote a letter to her beloved every day he was away.

• adjective

  That bakery sells a beloved recipe handed down for generations.

• noun

  The poem was dedicated to his late beloved.

Where does beloved come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Beloved grew out of the Old and Middle English verb 'beloven', which combined the intensifying prefix 'be-' with the verb 'lufian', meaning 'to love'. The prefix 'be-' was a common Old English device for turning a simple verb into a fuller, more thorough action, so 'beloven' carried the sense of loving someone deeply or completely. By the late 1300s the past participle 'beloved' had settled into use as an adjective meaning 'dearly loved', and from there it drifted into use as a noun naming the loved person. The spelling trap lives in that buried participle: writers expect a single straightforward word, yet it is really 'be' plus 'love' plus '-ed', which is why the silent middle and the lone 'l' are easy to mishandle. In older religious and ceremonial English the word often kept three spoken syllables, 'be-lov-ed', a pronunciation still heard at weddings and funerals today.

How the word is built

• be- (intensifying prefix, from Old English)
• lov(e) (to love)
• -ed (past participle suffix)