Measured

How to spell measured

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce measured

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does measured mean?

1. verbDetermined the size, amount, or degree of something, in the past.
2. adjectiveCalm, deliberate, and carefully controlled in manner or pace.

Measured in a sentence

• verb

  The tailor measured the length of the trousers before cutting the cloth.

• adjective

  He gave a calm, measured response to the harsh criticism.

• verb

  She carefully measured each ingredient before starting the recipe.

• adjective

  Her measured tone reassured the nervous clients during the meeting.

Where does measured come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows from the Latin mensura, meaning 'a measuring' or 'measurement', which itself came from metiri, the verb 'to measure'. It travelled into English through the Old French mesurer during the 1200s, when it described the act of finding the size, weight, or extent of something. Over time the past participle 'measured' took on a second life as an adjective, meaning calm, deliberate, and carefully controlled, as though every word or step had been weighed out in advance. The same mensura root still hides inside everyday relatives such as 'measurement', 'commensurate', and even 'dimension'. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the 'eas' cluster sounds like a plain 'ezh', so writers can be tempted to drop a letter or reshape the vowels.

How the word is built

• measur- (from Latin mensura, a measuring)
• -ed (past tense / adjective suffix)