Lost

How to spell lost

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce lost

What does lost mean?

1. adjectiveUnable to be found, or unable to find the way.
2. verbThe past tense and past participle of lose: to have ceased to have something or failed to win.

Lost in a sentence

• adjective

  The tourists were completely lost in the old part of the city.

• verb

  The team lost the final match by a single goal.

• adjective

  Her keys had been lost somewhere in the house all morning.

• verb

  He lost his wallet on the train yesterday.

Where does lost come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense and past participle of the verb 'lose', which traces back to the Old English verb 'losian', meaning 'to perish' or 'to be destroyed', and the related 'forleosan', meaning 'to lose or be deprived of'. The deeper root is the Germanic base that also gave us 'loose' and 'loss', all carrying a sense of things coming apart or slipping away. Over the centuries the harsh original sense of 'perishing' softened into the everyday meaning of failing to keep or find something. The spelling settled with a single 's' and a final 't' because the old strong-verb past form contracted neatly, so it never picked up the doubled letters that trip people up elsewhere. Because the word is so short and familiar, the spelling is rarely a problem, even though its cousin 'loose' is constantly muddled with 'lose' in the present tense.

How the word is built

• los- (from Old English losian: to perish, become lost)
• -t (past tense/participle ending)