Disclosed

How to spell disclosed

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce disclosed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does disclosed mean?

1. verbMade previously secret or unknown information known to others.

Disclosed in a sentence

• The company disclosed its annual profits to shareholders.

• He had not disclosed the full cost of the repairs.

Where does disclosed come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the past tense of disclose, a verb English took in during the 1300s from the Old French desclore, meaning to open up or lay bare. That French word rested on the Latin dis-, signalling reversal or undoing, attached to claudere, meaning to shut or close. So the literal sense was to un-shut, to throw something open that had been kept closed, and from there it shifted to the modern idea of revealing information that was previously hidden. The same claudere root sits inside a large family of English words including close, conclude, include and seclude, all carrying the notion of shutting. Knowing that the core is simply close, with dis- in front and -ed on the end, makes the spelling easier to hold together; there is no double letter and no silent surprise beyond the familiar silent e of close giving way to the suffix.

How the word is built

• dis- (reversal, undo)
• clos- (from Latin claudere: to shut)
• -ed (past tense)