Distributed

How to spell distributed

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce distributed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does distributed mean?

1. verbShared out or divided among a number of people, places, or things.
2. adjectiveSpread across several separate locations or machines rather than held in one central place.

Distributed in a sentence

• verb

  The charity distributed blankets to every family in the shelter.

• adjective

  The application runs on a distributed network of servers in three countries.

• verb

  The company distributed bonuses evenly across the whole team.

• adjective

  A distributed database stores copies of the records in many data centres.

Where does distributed come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb distribuere, meaning 'to divide and deal out', formed from dis-, a prefix meaning 'apart' or 'in different directions', and tribuere, meaning 'to assign or allot'. That root tribuere is itself connected to tribus, the word for a 'tribe' or division of the Roman people, since assigning things often meant apportioning them among the tribes. English took the verb 'distribute' from the Latin past participle distributus in the 1400s, and 'distributed' is simply its regular inflected form. The same tribuere root surfaces in relatives such as 'tribute', 'contribute', and 'attribute', all sharing the underlying idea of giving or assigning. The spelling trap lies in the unstressed middle: the '-trib-' is easy, but writers sometimes hesitate over the single 'b' and the '-uted' ending, which carries a quiet 'yoo' sound.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart, in different directions)
• tribut (from Latin tribuere: to assign, allot)
• -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)