Fulfilled

How to spell fulfilled

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce fulfilled

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fulfilled mean?

1. verbCarried out, completed, or satisfied something such as a duty, promise, requirement, or order.
2. adjectiveFeeling happy, satisfied, and content because one's hopes, abilities, or ambitions have been realised.

Fulfilled in a sentence

• verb

  The supplier fulfilled the contract two days ahead of the deadline.

• adjective

  He felt genuinely fulfilled after switching to a career that matched his values.

• verb

  She fulfilled her promise to repay every penny of the loan.

• adjective

  A fulfilled life looks different for everyone who chases it.

Where does fulfilled come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English verb 'fulfyllan', which combined 'full' with 'fyllan', meaning 'to fill', so its earliest sense was literally to fill something up to the brim or to make it complete. Over the medieval period the idea of physical filling broadened into the abstract notion of carrying something through to completion, such as satisfying a duty, a promise, or a prophecy. The single base verb settled into two accepted modern spellings, British 'fulfil' with one 'l' at the end and American 'fulfill' with two, yet both dialects add the same '-led' inflection, producing the identical past form 'fulfilled'. The spelling trap lives in that history: the first syllable comes from 'full' but drops one 'l', while the doubled 'l' that you do hear belongs to the 'fill' part plus the suffix. A close native relative is the everyday word 'fill' itself, and remembering that the word is really 'full' plus 'fill' plus '-ed' keeps the consonants in order.

How the word is built

• ful- (from Old English 'full')
• fill (from 'fyllan', to fill)
• -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)