Insured

How to spell insured

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce insured

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does insured mean?

1. verbPast tense of insure: arranged financial protection against loss or damage by means of an insurance policy.
2. nounThe person or party covered by an insurance contract.

Insured in a sentence

• verb

  The car was fully insured against theft and accidental damage.

• noun

  The insured must notify the company within thirty days of any accident.

• verb

  They insured the house for its full rebuild cost before moving in.

• noun

  Payment of the claim depends on whether the insured kept the premiums up to date.

Where does insured come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past form of the verb insure, which began life as a spelling variant of ensure. Both trace back through Old French enseurer to the Latin securus, meaning 'free from care' or 'safe', built from se- 'without' and cura 'care'. In medieval and early modern English the two spellings, insure and ensure, were used almost interchangeably, but over time a useful division of labour emerged: ensure came to mean 'make certain that something happens', while insure narrowed to the commercial sense of 'arrange financial protection against loss'. The same Latin securus also gave English the words secure and sure, so the idea of safety runs through the whole family. Because insure and ensure once meant the same thing and still sound identical, the choice between them remains one of the most common spelling traps for adults today.

How the word is built

• in- (variant of en-: make, put into)
• sure (certain, secure)
• -ed (past tense/participle suffix)