Concealed

How to spell concealed

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce concealed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does concealed mean?

1. adjectiveKept hidden or out of sight, deliberately not visible.
2. verbPast tense of conceal: hid something or kept it secret.

Concealed in a sentence

• adjective

  The safe was concealed behind a sliding bookcase.

• verb

  She concealed her disappointment during the meeting.

• adjective

  A concealed camera recorded everyone entering the lobby.

• verb

  The firm concealed the losses from its investors for two years.

Where does concealed come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb concelare, meaning 'to hide completely', which combined the intensifying prefix con- with celare, 'to hide' or 'to keep secret'. English took it in during the 1300s through Old French conceler, and the base form 'conceal' settled into the language as a verb for deliberately keeping something out of sight. The Latin celare also lies behind the more transparent word 'cell', once a small hidden chamber, and even behind 'occult', literally something covered over. The spelling trap sits in the middle: the sound is a soft 's', but it is written with a 'c', and the vowel team 'ea' is easy to flip to 'ee' or 'ie'. Remembering the Latin celare, hide, helps fix that single 'c' followed by 'eal'.

How the word is built

• con- (fully, together)
• ceal (from Latin celare: to hide)
• -ed (past tense / participle suffix)