Discredited

How to spell discredited

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce discredited

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does discredited mean?

1. adjectiveNo longer regarded as accurate, reliable, or reputable.
2. verbPast form of discredit: to have damaged the reputation or believability of someone or something.

Discredited in a sentence

• adjective

  The discredited study was quietly removed from the journal's website.

• verb

  The leaked emails discredited the witness during the trial.

• adjective

  He repeated a long discredited rumour about the company's finances.

• verb

  New evidence completely discredited his version of events.

Where does discredited come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows from the Latin verb credere, meaning 'to believe' or 'to trust', which also gave English the everyday word 'credit', something you extend when you trust a person to repay you. In the late 1500s English combined 'credit' with the prefix dis-, which reverses or undoes an action, to form 'discredit', literally to take away belief or trust. The past form 'discredited' then meant having had one's good name or reliability stripped away, whether a person, a claim, or a theory. The spelling trap lives in that quiet middle: the unstressed 'cred' followed by '-it', then a single 't' before '-ed', so writers must resist doubling the t. Knowing the family of 'credit', 'credible', and 'incredible' all share the same trustworthy root helps keep the spelling steady.

How the word is built

• dis- (reverse, remove)
• cred (from Latin credere: to believe, trust)
• -it (as in 'credit')
• -ed (past tense / participle suffix)