Inhabited

How to spell inhabited

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce inhabited

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does inhabited mean?

1. verbLived in or occupied a place, as people or creatures dwelling there.

Inhabited in a sentence

• Farmers have inhabited this valley for hundreds of years.

• The remote island was inhabited by only a handful of families.

Where does inhabited come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb inhabitare, meaning 'to dwell in', which combined the prefix in- ('in' or 'within') with habitare, meaning 'to live in' or 'to occupy'. That habitare was itself a frequentative form of habere, the Latin verb meaning 'to have, to hold', so the underlying idea is of holding or keeping a place by living there. English took the word in through Old French in the late 1300s, and the spelling has stayed close to its Latin shape ever since. The same habere root quietly survives in the everyday word 'habit', which once meant a way of holding oneself, and in 'habitat', the place a creature holds as home. Remembering that connection to 'habit' helps fix the single b and single t in the spelling.

How the word is built

• in- (in, within)
• habit (from Latin habitare: to dwell)
• -ed (past tense / adjective suffix)