Funded

How to spell funded

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce funded

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does funded mean?

1. verbProvided money to pay for a project, organisation, or activity (past tense).

Funded in a sentence

• The council funded the new library out of local taxes.

• A private donor funded the entire research programme.

Where does funded come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin fundus, which literally meant 'the bottom' or 'the foundation' of something, the very same root that gives us 'foundation' and 'fundamental'. By way of French and Italian banking language, fund came into English in the 1600s to mean a permanent stock of money set aside as a base for some purpose, the financial 'bottom' you could draw upon. The verb sense, meaning to provide money for a project or organisation, grew naturally out of that noun, and the regular past form simply adds -ed. Because the root describes a solid base or bottom, you can picture funding as laying the financial groundwork beneath an enterprise. The single d of fund doubles in writing only when you add -ed, giving the neat 'fund' plus 'ed' join that trips up almost nobody.

How the word is built

• fund (from Latin fundus: bottom, foundation)
• -ed (past tense/participle suffix)