Esteemed

How to spell esteemed

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce esteemed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does esteemed mean?

1. adjectiveHighly respected and admired, especially in a professional or formal context.
2. verbPast tense of esteem: regarded someone or something with respect and admiration.

Esteemed in a sentence

• adjective

  The esteemed professor delivered the closing lecture of the conference.

• verb

  Colleagues always esteemed her judgement during difficult negotiations.

• adjective

  She joined the practice as its most esteemed consultant.

• verb

  The committee esteemed his contribution far above the others.

Where does esteemed come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin verb aestimare, which meant 'to value, to appraise, or to set a price on'. It travelled into English through the Old French estimer, and English at first used 'esteem' to mean literally to assess the worth of something, much as a valuer might. Over time the financial sense softened into a warmer one: to esteem a person came to mean to hold them in high regard rather than to put a number on them. The past participle 'esteemed' settled into use as an adjective for someone highly respected, and the very same Latin root also gives us 'estimate', where the original appraising sense survives almost untouched. The double 'e' in the middle is the spelling trap, since the sound invites writers to reach for 'ea' as in 'steamed'.

How the word is built

• esteem (from Latin aestimare: to value, appraise)
• -ed (adjective/past participle suffix)