Desired

How to spell desired

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce desired

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does desired mean?

1. adjectiveWished for, sought after, or considered ideal.
2. verbWanted or longed for; the past tense of desire.

Desired in a sentence

• adjective

  The new policy finally produced the desired result.

• verb

  She had always desired a quiet house by the sea.

• adjective

  After months of training he reached his desired weight.

• verb

  The customers desired a faster refund than the store offered.

Where does desired come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb desiderare, which meant 'to long for' or 'to wish for'. The Latin form is often linked to the phrase de sidere, literally 'from the stars', and may have begun as the language of augurs who watched the heavens and felt the absence of a hoped-for sign; the original sense of 'to miss something looked for' softened over time into simply 'to want'. The word passed into Old French as desirer, and English borrowed it during the 1200s as 'desire', adding the regular '-ed' ending to form the past tense and the adjective 'desired'. The same Latin root underlies 'consider', which once also carried that stargazing imagery of examining the sky. For spelling, the trap is the unstressed middle: the '-sire-' is pronounced like the word for a noble father, and writers sometimes drop or muddle the silent 'e' before the '-ed'.

How the word is built

• desir- (from Latin desiderare: to long for)
• -ed (past tense / adjectival suffix)