Filtered

How to spell filtered

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce filtered

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does filtered mean?

1. verbPassed a liquid, light, sound or information through something that removes unwanted parts.
2. adjectiveHaving been passed through a filter to remove impurities or unwanted matter.

Filtered in a sentence

• verb

  Morning sunlight filtered through the thin bedroom curtains.

• adjective

  She keeps a jug of filtered water in the fridge for guests.

• verb

  The team filtered the survey results to remove duplicate entries.

• adjective

  The cafe sells filtered coffee by the cup at the counter.

Where does filtered come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is the past form of 'filter', which English took from the French filtre, itself drawn from the Medieval Latin filtrum. That Latin word literally meant a piece of felt, the matted wool cloth that people once used to strain wine and other liquids; the cloth gave its name to the action of straining through it. The Latin term was in fact borrowed from a Germanic root closely related to the modern English word 'felt', so the everyday fabric and the laboratory verb share a surprisingly homely ancestor. The noun arrived in English in the early 1600s, with the verb following soon after as people began to talk about passing liquids and, later, light, sound and information through a straining medium. The single 'l' and the plain 'ter' ending are the spelling points to watch, since there is no doubling and no second vowel to slip in.

How the word is built

• filter (from Latin filtrum: felt used to strain liquid)
• -ed (past tense / adjective suffix)