Drafted

How to spell drafted

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce drafted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does drafted mean?

1. verbPrepared a preliminary written version of something, such as a letter, plan, or contract.
2. verbSelected or called up for compulsory military service.
3. verbChosen by a professional team during an organised player selection.

Drafted in a sentence

• She drafted the report over the weekend before sending it to her manager.

• Thousands of young men were drafted into the army during the war.

• The rookie was drafted in the first round and signed a major contract.

• The committee drafted a new policy on remote working.

• His grandfather was drafted at eighteen and served for three years.

• She was drafted by the league's newest franchise straight out of college.

Where does drafted come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word draft is a phonetic respelling of draught, which descends from Old English dragan, meaning 'to draw' or 'to pull', a thoroughly Germanic root shared with the modern verb 'draw'. The original idea was anything pulled out or drawn off: a pulling load, a current of air drawn through a room, beer drawn from a barrel, and a sketch drawn out on paper. From that drawing-out sense came the notion of drawing up a preliminary version of a document, and later the act of drawing men out of the population for military service. American English settled on the spelling draft for the writing, money, and conscription senses, while British English kept draught for the air current and the beer; the past form drafted, with -ed added, almost always belongs to the document and conscription branches. The spelling trap is simply that draft sounds like it might be spelled with the older -ught cluster, yet the inflected verb is regular and plain.

How the word is built

• draft (a preliminary drawing or pulling)
• -ed (past tense/participle suffix)