Canned

How to spell canned

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce canned

What does canned mean?

1. adjectivePreserved and sealed inside a metal tin or can.
2. adjectiveRecorded or prepared in advance rather than produced live or spontaneously.
3. verbDismissed someone from their job; the informal past tense of 'can'.

Canned in a sentence

• adjective

  The pantry shelf was stacked with canned tomatoes and beans.

• adjective

  The old sitcom relied on canned laughter after every joke.

• verb

  Management canned half the department after the takeover.

• adjective

  During the storm they lived on canned soup and bottled water.

• adjective

  The call centre read out a canned response that fit no one's actual problem.

• verb

  The firm canned him for leaking confidential figures.

Where does canned come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word 'can' meaning a metal or tin container comes from the Old English 'canne', a word for a cup or drinking vessel that has close relatives across the Germanic languages, such as Dutch 'kan' and German 'Kanne'. For most of its history it simply named a vessel, but in the nineteenth century, when the new technology of sealing food inside soldered tin containers took off, 'can' became a verb meaning 'to preserve in a sealed tin'. The past and participial form 'canned' then naturally followed, describing food put up in this way. By the early twentieth century the word stretched into figurative use: 'canned' came to mean prepackaged or pre-recorded rather than fresh and live, as in canned music or a canned speech. The spelling trap is small but real, since the short vowel forces the single n of 'can' to double before the -ed ending.

How the word is built

• can (sealed metal container)
• -ed (past participle / adjective suffix; the final n doubles after the short vowel)