Interested

How to spell interested

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce interested

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does interested mean?

1. adjectiveShowing curiosity, attention, or a desire to be involved in something.
2. adjectiveHaving a personal or financial stake that may affect impartiality.

Interested in a sentence

• She seemed genuinely interested in the new project at work.

• As an interested party in the dispute, she could not serve on the panel.

• He is interested in learning Spanish before the trip.

• The contract barred any financially interested director from voting.

Where does interested come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb interesse, meaning literally 'to be between' or 'to be among', formed from inter ('between') and esse ('to be'). In legal and commercial Latin this developed the sense of mattering to someone or making a difference to them, so the impersonal phrase interest came to mean 'it concerns' or 'it is of importance'. English borrowed the noun 'interest' through Old French and medieval legal Latin in the late Middle Ages, at first for a legal stake or financial claim, and only later for personal curiosity or attention. The adjective 'interested' grew from the verb 'to interest', and originally leaned toward the meaning 'having a financial or personal stake' before settling into the everyday modern sense of being curious or engaged. The tricky spelling hides an unstressed middle syllable: the second 'e' in inter-EST-ed is easy to swallow in speech, which is why people drop letters and write it short.

How the word is built

• interest (from Latin interesse: to be between, to concern)
• -ed (past participle/adjective suffix)