Conferred

How to spell conferred

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce conferred

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does conferred mean?

1. verbGranted or bestowed a title, degree, honour, or right on someone.
2. verbDiscussed something with another person in order to reach a decision.

Conferred in a sentence

• The university conferred an honorary doctorate on the retiring scientist.

• The jurors conferred for several hours before announcing their verdict.

• The new charter conferred voting rights on every member of the society.

• She conferred with her accountant before signing the contract.

Where does conferred come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past tense of 'confer', which English took from the Latin verb conferre. That verb was built from con-, meaning 'together', and ferre, meaning 'to bring or carry', so the literal sense was 'to bring together'. From that root grew two related ideas that still live in the modern word: bringing people together to talk (to confer with colleagues) and bringing or bestowing something on a person (to confer a degree or an honour). English adopted it in the early 1500s, and the same ferre root carries through a large family of words including 'transfer', 'refer', 'offer' and 'infer'. The spelling trap sits in the ending: because the stress falls on the final syllable of 'confer', the r doubles before -ed, giving 'conferred' rather than 'confered'.

How the word is built

• con- (together)
• fer (Latin ferre: to bring, carry)
• -red (doubled r before the past-tense -ed)