Intrigued
adjectiveCurious and fascinated; having one's interest strongly aroused.
How to spell intrigued
9 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce intrigued
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does intrigued mean?
- adjectiveCurious and fascinated; having one's interest strongly aroused.
- verbPast tense of intrigue: aroused the curiosity or interest of someone.
Intrigued in a sentence
-
adjective
She was intrigued by the job advertisement and read it twice.
-
verb
The mysterious phone call intrigued everyone in the office.
-
adjective
The unusual proposal left the whole board intrigued and eager for details.
-
verb
The half-finished manuscript intrigued the editor enough to request the rest.
Where does intrigued come from?
Language of origin: French
This word traces back to the Latin verb intricare, which meant 'to entangle' or 'to perplex', built from the prefix in- ('into') and tricae, a noun for trifles, tangles, or troublesome complications. Italian developed this into intrigare and the noun intrigo, used for tangled, scheming plots, and French borrowed it as intriguer and intrigue. English took the word in during the 1600s, at first in the sense of secret plotting and scheming, and only later in the gentler sense of arousing someone's curiosity. The spelling keeps the French -gue ending, which is why the silent 'ue' so often trips writers, and the past form simply adds -d to give 'intrigued'. The buried sense of 'entanglement' is a useful memory hook: to be intrigued is to feel your mind pleasantly tangled up in something.
How the word is built
- intrigue (from Latin intricare: to entangle)
- -ed (past tense / adjectival suffix)
Fix your spelling for good.
Spelling Garden finds the words you personally get wrong, plants them in a garden, and brings each one back just before you would have forgotten it.
Just five minutes a day is all it takes to fix your spelling.