Designed

How to spell designed

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce designed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does designed mean?

1. verbPlanned, created, or shaped something with a specific purpose or appearance in mind (past tense of design).
2. adjectiveMade or intended for a particular purpose or effect.

Designed in a sentence

• verb

  The architect designed the new library to flood every room with daylight.

• adjective

  The workspace was designed to keep every tool within easy reach.

• verb

  Engineers designed the bridge to withstand heavy flooding.

• adjective

  The room had a carefully designed layout that guided visitors toward the exit.

Where does designed come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past tense and past participle of 'design', which traces back to the Latin verb designare, meaning 'to mark out' or 'to point out'. That verb was built from the prefix de-, here meaning 'out' or 'down', and signum, the Latin word for a 'mark' or 'sign', the same root that gives us 'signal' and 'signature'. English picked up the word in the late 1400s, partly through Old French and Italian forms, where it carried the dual idea of marking something out on paper and forming a plan in the mind. The spelling preserves the silent 'g' from the Latin signum, which is exactly the trap: writers hear 'di-zine' and may forget that buried 'g'. The same hidden 'g' appears in the related words 'resign' and 'sign' itself, all sharing that ancestral 'mark'.

How the word is built

• de- (out, down)
• sign (mark, from Latin signum 'mark, sign')
• -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)