Elevated

How to spell elevated

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce elevated

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does elevated mean?

1. adjectiveRaised to a higher position, level, or degree than normal.
2. verbPast tense of elevate: raised someone or something to a higher position, rank, or level.

Elevated in a sentence

• adjective

  The elevated railway runs high above the busy city streets.

• verb

  The board elevated her to a senior management role last spring.

• adjective

  Her blood pressure was elevated after the long climb.

• verb

  The engineers elevated the bridge deck to clear the rising water.

Where does elevated come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb elevare, meaning 'to lift up' or 'to raise', formed from the prefix e- (a reduced form of ex-, here suggesting an upward motion) and levare, 'to lighten or raise', which itself grew from levis, meaning 'light' in weight. The underlying idea is that lifting something makes it seem lighter, so the same levis root sits inside familiar words like 'levity', 'lever', and 'alleviate'. English took 'elevate' from Latin in the fifteenth century, and 'elevated' is simply its past form pressed into service as an adjective. Over time the literal sense of physically raised broadened to figurative uses, such as an elevated mood or an elevated reading on a gauge. The spelling stays regular once you notice the single l and single v, with the trap being the unstressed schwa in the middle that tempts writers toward an extra letter.

How the word is built

• e- (variant of ex-, up/out)
• lev (from levare, to raise or make light)
• -ate (verb suffix)
• -ed (past/adjective ending)