Contrasted

How to spell contrasted

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce contrasted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does contrasted mean?

1. verbCompared two or more things in a way that highlighted their differences.
2. adjectiveShown or arranged so that differences stand out clearly.

Contrasted in a sentence

• verb

  The report contrasted this year's profits with last year's losses.

• adjective

  The brochure used brightly contrasted colours to draw the eye.

• verb

  The teacher contrasted the two essays to show how their arguments diverged.

• adjective

  The designer favoured sharply contrasted textures across the room.

Where does contrasted come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes ultimately from the Latin contra, meaning 'against' or 'opposite', combined with stare, meaning 'to stand', so the underlying image is of two things standing against each other for comparison. The compound passed into Italian as contrastare, 'to strive or struggle against', and then into Old French as contraster before reaching English in the late 1300s, at first carrying a sense of fighting or opposing. By the 1600s the meaning had softened into the modern one of setting two things side by side to show how they differ. The painter's and printer's vocabulary later borrowed it for the visible difference between light and dark. The -ed ending here is simply the regular past tense, added to the verb 'contrast', so the spelling trap is mostly the silent logic of contra- (against) plus the -st- cluster from 'stand'.

How the word is built

• contra- (against, opposite)
• -st (from Latin stare, to stand)
• -ed (past tense suffix)