Completed

How to spell completed

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce completed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does completed mean?

1. verbFinished making or doing something so that nothing remains to be done.
2. adjectiveBrought to a finished or fully done state.

Completed in a sentence

• verb

  She completed the project a week ahead of the deadline.

• adjective

  Please return the completed form to the front desk.

• verb

  The builders completed the extension before the winter rain arrived.

• adjective

  The completed building was opened to the public last month.

Where does completed come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past tense of 'complete', which comes from the Latin verb complere, meaning 'to fill up' or 'to finish'. That verb was built from the intensifying prefix com- and the root plere, meaning 'to fill', the same root that gives us 'plenty', 'replete' and 'supplement'. The sense moved naturally from 'filled full' to 'made whole' and then to 'finished', and English took the word in through Old French complet during the late 1300s. The bare verb 'complete' simply adds the regular -ed ending to mark a finished action, so the spelling stays predictable. Remembering the Latin idea of 'filling something up until nothing is missing' captures both the meaning and the single, tidy spelling.

How the word is built

• com- (intensifier, fully)
• plet (from Latin plere: to fill)
• -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)