Guided

How to spell guided

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce guided

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does guided mean?

1. verbPast tense of guide: led or directed someone along a route or through a process.
2. adjectiveLed or controlled by a guide, instructor, or directing system.

Guided in a sentence

• verb

  The ranger guided the hikers safely back to the car park.

• adjective

  They booked a guided tour of the old castle for the afternoon.

• verb

  A senior accountant guided her through the tax return step by step.

• adjective

  The app offers a guided meditation every evening.

Where does guided come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the past form of the verb 'guide', which English took from the Old French verb 'guider', meaning 'to lead' or 'to show the way'. The French word itself grew out of an older Germanic root linked to 'witan', meaning 'to know' or 'to have insight', the same family that gave us 'wit' and 'wise'; the idea was that someone who knows the way can lead others along it. When the word reached English in the 1300s, the initial 'gu-' spelling was a French scribal habit used to keep the 'g' hard before front vowels, and that quirk is exactly why people sometimes forget the silent-looking 'u'. The participle 'guided' simply adds the regular '-ed' ending, and because the base ends in a silent 'e', that 'e' is dropped before the suffix. The same root also surfaces in 'guidance' and, less obviously, in 'guile' through related medieval forms.

How the word is built

• guid- (from Old French guider: to lead, show the way)
• -ed (past tense/participle suffix)