Exemplified

How to spell exemplified

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce exemplified

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does exemplified mean?

1. verbServed as a typical or perfect example of something, or illustrated it clearly.

Exemplified in a sentence

• Her quiet patience exemplified the calm leadership the team needed.

• The report exemplified each policy with a real case from the previous year.

Where does exemplified come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past tense of 'exemplify', which traces back to the Latin noun exemplum, meaning 'a sample, a pattern, or a model to be copied'. That noun came from eximere, 'to take out', built from ex- 'out' and emere 'to take or buy', so an exemplum was literally something taken out of a larger group to stand for the rest. Medieval Latin formed the verb exemplificare, 'to make an example of' or 'to illustrate by example', and English borrowed it through Old French as 'exemplify' in the late 1300s, at first in the legal sense of making an official copy of a document. The everyday meaning, to serve as a typical or perfect instance of something, grew naturally from that idea of a sample standing in for the whole. The same exemplum root sits inside the familiar words 'example' and 'sample', and remembering that 'exempl-' link is the easiest way to avoid the common slip of writing 'examplified'.

How the word is built

• ex- (out)
• empl- (from exemplum: a sample, model)
• -ify (to make)
• -ied (past tense)