Decked

How to spell decked

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce decked

What does decked mean?

1. verbDecorated or adorned, often elaborately or festively.
2. verbKnocked someone to the ground with a blow, in informal usage.

Decked in a sentence

• The entire office was decked with tinsel and fairy lights before the party.

• The boxer decked his opponent in the opening round.

• The bride was decked in pearls and a long lace veil.

• One wild swing decked the heckler before security arrived.

Where does decked come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

The base word deck comes from the Middle Dutch noun 'dec', meaning a covering or roof, and the related verb 'dekken', meaning 'to cover'. English sailors borrowed the noun in the late 1400s for the planked covering laid over the hull of a ship, and from there it spread to any flat platform. The verb sense behind 'decked' grew out of the idea of covering something handsomely: to deck a person or place was to clothe or adorn it, which is why we still 'deck the halls'. A much later and slangier branch, recorded in nineteenth-century American English, used 'deck' to mean knocking someone flat, as if laying them out on the deck. The spelling stays simple and phonetic because the hard 'ck' was already settled in English long before the borrowing took root.

How the word is built

• deck (to cover or adorn, from Dutch dekken)
• -ed (past tense suffix)