Exposed

How to spell exposed

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce exposed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does exposed mean?

1. verbPast tense of expose: made visible, revealed, or left without protection.
2. adjectiveLeft open to harm, weather, or view; not sheltered or protected.

Exposed in a sentence

• verb

  The audit exposed a serious gap in the company accounts.

• adjective

  The cottage sits on an exposed hillside that catches every gale.

• verb

  The journalist exposed the fraud after months of research.

• adjective

  Workers on the exposed scaffolding wore harnesses for safety.

Where does exposed come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past form of the verb 'expose', which entered English in the fifteenth century from the Old French 'exposer', meaning 'to set out' or 'to display'. The French word blended two Latin sources: the prefix 'ex-', meaning 'out', and 'ponere', meaning 'to put or place', whose past participle was 'positus'. So at root 'exposed' literally means 'placed out', that is, put where it can be seen or reached. From the idea of laying something out in the open grew the modern senses of revealing a secret, uncovering something hidden, and leaving something unprotected. The same 'ponere' root sits inside 'position', 'deposit', and 'compose', and the spelling holds the 's' (not a 'z') because it descends from Latin 'positus' even though English pronounces it with a 'z' sound.

How the word is built

• ex- (out)
• pos (from Latin ponere/positus: to place)
• -ed (past tense/participle suffix)