Embedded

How to spell embedded

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce embedded

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does embedded mean?

1. adjectiveFixed firmly and deeply within a surrounding mass or structure.
2. verbPast tense of embed: fixed something firmly into a surrounding material or system.

Embedded in a sentence

• adjective

  The splinter stayed embedded in her thumb for two days.

• verb

  The builders embedded steel rods deep in the wet concrete.

• adjective

  The new payment feature is embedded in the banking app.

• verb

  The developer embedded a tracking code into every web page.

Where does embedded come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word is built on the old verb 'bed', from Old English 'bedd', which named both a place to sleep and, more broadly, a base or hollow in which something is firmly settled (as in a flower bed or a riverbed). The prefix 'em-' is a form of 'en-', meaning 'in' or 'into', so 'embed' literally means 'to set into a bed', that is, to fix something firmly in a surrounding mass. The verb 'embed' first appears in English in the early 1800s, often in geological writing about fossils set into rock. 'Embedded' is its past tense and past participle, and because 'bed' ends in a single stressed vowel plus a single consonant, the final 'd' is doubled before the ending, which is exactly the spelling trap. The same root sits inside everyday words like 'bedrock' and 'bedding', a useful reminder that the core is simply 'bed' with one 'd' doubled.

How the word is built

• em- (in, variant of en-)
• bed (a base or resting place, from Old English bedd)
• -ded (past-tense ending with the final consonant doubled)