Knitted

How to spell knitted

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce knitted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does knitted mean?

1. verbFormed fabric or a garment by looping yarn together with needles, in the past.
2. adjectiveMade by knitting; describing a garment or fabric produced from looped yarn.

Knitted in a sentence

• verb

  She knitted a scarf for her father over the winter.

• adjective

  A thick knitted jumper hung on the back of the door.

• verb

  The volunteers knitted hundreds of small hats for the hospital.

• adjective

  She packed a pair of knitted gloves for the cold mornings.

Where does knitted come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense of the verb 'knit', which descends from the Old English cnyttan, meaning 'to tie in a knot' or 'to fasten together'. That word grew from a Germanic root connected to 'knot', and for centuries it described any kind of binding or joining rather than working wool with needles. The familiar craft sense, looping yarn into fabric, only became dominant in the late Middle Ages as hand knitting spread across Europe. The silent initial 'k' is a fossil of older pronunciation, when speakers actually sounded both the k and the n, a habit English dropped around the 1600s while keeping the spelling. The doubled 't' in 'knitted' simply follows the rule for a short stressed vowel before a verb ending, the same pattern seen in 'fitted' and 'sitted'-style forms.

How the word is built

• knit (from Old English cnyttan: to tie in a knot)
• -ted (past tense suffix, with the final t doubled)