Boosted

How to spell boosted

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce boosted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does boosted mean?

1. verbIncreased, raised, or improved something, or physically pushed it upward.

Boosted in a sentence

• The holiday discounts boosted sales across every store.

• A strong reference boosted her confidence before the interview.

Where does boosted come from?

Language of origin: Unknown

The base verb 'boost' is an American coinage that surfaced in the early 1800s, and its ultimate origin is genuinely obscure, with no clear parent word in Latin, French, or Old English. The earliest recorded sense was physical, meaning to push or shove someone upward, as when one person gives another a lift over a wall. From that literal pushing-up sense it quickly broadened in nineteenth-century American usage to mean raising or promoting almost anything, including prices, morale, signals, and sales. Some lexicographers suspect it may be a dialect alteration of 'boast', though the connection is unproven, which is why dictionaries usually label it simply 'origin uncertain'. The past form 'boosted' is built regularly by adding -ed, and because the root ends in a single 't' you keep a single 't' before the ending, a small reassurance for the speller.

How the word is built

• boost (to push up, lift, increase)
• -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)