Headed

How to spell headed

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce headed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does headed mean?

1. verbPast tense of 'head': moved or travelled in a particular direction.
2. adjectivePrinted with a name, address, or title at the top, as on official stationery.

Headed in a sentence

• verb

  After the meeting they headed straight for the car park.

• adjective

  The solicitor sent the contract on headed company paper.

• verb

  The train headed north through the snow-covered hills.

• adjective

  Each formal letter was typed on headed notepaper bearing the firm's address.

Where does headed come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense and past participle of the verb 'head', which grew directly out of the Old English noun heafod, meaning the top part of the body that holds the brain. The same Germanic root lies behind the Dutch 'hoofd' and the German 'Haupt', all tracing back to a Proto-Germanic word for the top or chief part of something. From the literal body part, English extended 'head' to mean the leading or front position, then turned it into a verb meaning to lead or to move toward a place, as in heading north. The simple -ed ending was added to form the past tense, and because the root already ends in a 'd', the spelling doubles the sound but not the letter, which is exactly the small trap: it is one 'd' from the root plus the -ed suffix, giving 'headed', not 'heded' or 'headded'.

How the word is built

• head (from Old English heafod: top of the body)
• -ed (past tense / past participle and adjective suffix)