Equipped

How to spell equipped

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce equipped

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does equipped mean?

1. verbPast tense and past participle of equip: supplied with the tools, skills, or resources needed for a purpose.

Equipped in a sentence

• The new kitchen came fully equipped with modern appliances.

• The training course left her well equipped to handle difficult clients.

Where does equipped come from?

Language of origin: French

This word goes back to the French verb équiper, meaning 'to fit out' or 'to supply', which was first used about fitting out a ship for a voyage. The French in turn most likely borrowed it from Old Norse skipa, meaning 'to arrange' or 'to man a vessel', a word built on skip, the Norse word for 'ship'. English took the verb in during the sixteenth century, initially in the same nautical sense of stocking and crewing a vessel before it broadened to mean supplying a person or place with whatever they need. The buried sea-going origin links equip to the everyday word 'ship'. The spelling trap lives in the ending: because the final syllable of equip is stressed and ends in a single vowel plus 'p', that 'p' doubles before the suffix, giving the double-p 'equipped' rather than the tempting single-p 'equiped'.

How the word is built

• equip- (from French équiper: to fit out)
• -p- (doubled consonant before the suffix)
• -ed (past tense/participle)