Deleted

How to spell deleted

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce deleted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does deleted mean?

1. verbRemoved or erased, especially text, data, or a file, so that it no longer exists.

Deleted in a sentence

• The report was deleted from the shared drive by mistake.

• She deleted the old photos to free up space on her phone.

Where does deleted come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past form of 'delete', which comes from the Latin verb delere, meaning 'to blot out, wipe away, or destroy'. The English word is built directly on deletus, the past participle of that verb, so the idea of something being erased is baked into the form. English adopted it in the fifteenth century, at first in the literal sense of striking words from a manuscript, before it broadened to anything removed or wiped from existence. A useful relative is 'indelible', literally something that cannot be deleted, which shares the very same delere root and helps explain the single 'l' and single 'e' pattern in the middle. Because the word follows the ordinary spoken sound so closely, the spelling holds few surprises beyond remembering it ends in the regular '-ed'.

How the word is built

• delet- (from Latin delere: to blot out, destroy)
• -ed (past-tense/participle suffix)