Coveted

How to spell coveted

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce coveted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does coveted mean?

1. adjectiveGreatly desired or sought after by many people.
2. verbPast tense of covet: to have desired something belonging to another, often improperly.

Coveted in a sentence

• adjective

  The firm offered the most coveted internship in the entire industry.

• verb

  For years he coveted his neighbour's classic car.

• adjective

  Winning the award gave her the coveted corner office on the top floor.

• verb

  She quietly coveted the promotion that her colleague received.

Where does coveted come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb cupere, which meant 'to long for' or 'to desire eagerly', the same root that gave the Romans their winged love-god Cupid. From cupere came forms tied to cupiditas, 'eager desire' or 'greed', and these passed into Old French as coveitier, meaning 'to desire wrongfully' or 'to want what belongs to another'. English took the verb in the 1200s as 'covet', often with a moral sting, as in the biblical commandment not to covet a neighbour's goods. Over time the simple past and the adjective 'coveted' softened into a broadly positive sense, describing something widely and admiringly desired, such as a prize or a title. The single 't' is the spelling trap: because the stress falls on the first syllable, writers are tempted to double the consonant, but covet ends in a single unstressed 't', so it stays single before -ed.

How the word is built

• covet (from Latin cupere: to desire)
• -ed (past tense / adjectival suffix)