Granted

How to spell granted

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce granted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does granted mean?

1. verbFormally gave, allowed, or bestowed something that was requested.
2. adverbUsed to admit that a point is true before making a contrasting argument.

Granted in a sentence

• verb

  The council granted planning permission for the extension.

• adverb

  Granted, the office is small, but the rent is far cheaper than downtown.

• verb

  The bank granted her a small business loan after the meeting.

• adverb

  Granted, the report arrived late, yet the figures inside were accurate.

Where does granted come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the past form of the verb 'grant', which English took from the Old French verb 'granter', a variant of 'creanter', meaning 'to promise' or 'to assure'. That French verb traces back to the Latin 'credentare', built on 'credere', meaning 'to believe' or 'to trust', so the original idea was about giving someone your word and being believed. By the time it settled into Middle English in the 1200s, the sense had shifted toward formally bestowing or allowing something, the meaning we keep today when a court 'granted' permission. The little discourse use, as in 'granted, the plan has flaws', grew out of the verb's sense of conceding a point. The spelling stays simple because the regular '-ed' ending is just bolted onto 'grant'; the only thing to watch is keeping the single 't' before the suffix.

How the word is built

• grant (from Old French granter: to agree, promise)
• -ed (past-tense/participle suffix)