Classified

How to spell classified

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce classified

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does classified mean?

1. adjectiveDesignated as officially secret and available only to authorised people.
2. verbArranged or sorted things into groups according to shared characteristics (past tense of classify).
3. adjectiveRelating to small newspaper advertisements grouped under subject headings.

Classified in a sentence

• adjective

  The report was marked classified and locked in a secure cabinet.

• verb

  The museum classified each fossil by age and region.

• adjective

  He found a cheap sofa in the classified section of the local paper.

• adjective

  Only senior officers could read the classified briefing.

• verb

  She classified the expenses into travel, lodging, and meals.

• adjective

  The newspaper earns steady revenue from its classified pages.

Where does classified come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word builds on 'class', which English took in the 1600s from the Latin classis, a term the Romans used for a division of the citizen body and later for any group ranked together. The verb 'classify' was formed in the eighteenth century by adding the Latin-derived ending '-ify', meaning roughly 'to make' or 'to put into', so to classify something was literally to sort it into a class. Adding '-ed' gives the past tense and the adjective 'classified', meaning sorted into categories. The sense 'officially secret' grew out of military and government paperwork, where documents were sorted into security classes such as 'restricted' or 'top secret', so a 'classified' file was simply one placed in a protected category. The spelling trap is the single 's' followed by double 's' in 'class' giving way to a single 'f', plus the soft '-fied' ending that sounds like 'fide'.

How the word is built

• class (a group or category)
• -ify (verb-forming: to make or put into)
• -ed (past participle / adjective ending)