Copyrighted

How to spell copyrighted

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce copyrighted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does copyrighted mean?

1. adjectiveProtected by copyright, so that reproduction without permission is unlawful.
2. verbSecured legal copyright over a work (past tense of copyright).

Copyrighted in a sentence

• adjective

  The report quoted several copyrighted images without paying any licensing fee.

• verb

  The band copyrighted every song before releasing the album.

• adjective

  Streaming a copyrighted film on the office projector can expose the company to fines.

• verb

  She copyrighted the manuscript months before sending it to publishers.

Where does copyrighted come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is a compound built from 'copy' and 'right', then given the familiar '-ed' ending. 'Copy' descends from the Latin copia, which literally meant 'abundance' or 'plenty', and in medieval Latin a copia came to mean a transcript or reproduction of a text, because making a duplicate produced more of it. 'Right' is a native English word from Old English riht, meaning a just claim or legal entitlement, the same root that gives us legal 'rights'. The two were joined in the early 1700s to name the exclusive legal right to copy and publish a work, formalised in Britain by the Statute of Anne in 1710. The verb 'to copyright' and its participle 'copyrighted' followed in the 1800s as the protection became routine. The spelling trap is purely the join: writers must remember it ends in '-right-' (the legal claim), not the soundalike '-write-', even though the right concerns who may write or reproduce the work.

How the word is built

• copy (from Latin copia: abundance, transcript)
• right (from Old English riht: legal claim)
• -ed (past tense / adjective suffix)