Confirmed

How to spell confirmed

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce confirmed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does confirmed mean?

1. adjectiveEstablished as true, settled, or definite after checking.
2. verbPast tense of confirm: to have verified or made certain.

Confirmed in a sentence

• adjective

  The airline sent a confirmed booking reference by email.

• verb

  The bank confirmed that the payment had cleared overnight.

• adjective

  Her appointment was confirmed for nine o'clock the next morning.

• verb

  She confirmed the reservation with a quick phone call.

Where does confirmed come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin confirmare, which combined the intensive prefix con- with firmare, meaning 'to make firm or strengthen', itself built on firmus, meaning 'strong' or 'steady'. The literal sense was therefore 'to make thoroughly firm', and from that came the ideas of establishing, settling, and verifying something beyond doubt. English took it through Old French confermer in the 1200s, originally in the religious sense of the rite of confirmation before broadening to mean 'to verify' or 'to settle definitely'. The same firmus root sits inside everyday relatives like 'firm', 'affirm', and 'firmament'. The spelling trap is the single m: writers sometimes double it by analogy, but it stays one m because firmare itself carried only one.

How the word is built

• con- (intensive: thoroughly)
• firm (from firmus: strong, steady)
• -ed (past tense/adjective suffix)