Outlined

How to spell outlined

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce outlined

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does outlined mean?

1. verbDescribed the main points of something, or drew its outer edge, in the past.

Outlined in a sentence

• The manager outlined the new strategy during the morning briefing.

• The architect outlined the building's shape with a single bold pencil stroke.

Where does outlined come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past tense of the verb 'outline', which began life as a noun in the early 1600s, formed in English by joining the native word 'out' to 'line'. The 'line' element traces back through Old French to the Latin linea, which literally meant 'a linen thread' and came from linum, the word for flax or linen, because early measuring lines and drawn lines were made from such threads. An 'outline' was first the outer line or contour of a shape, the boundary you would trace around an object, and by the 1700s it had stretched into the figurative sense of a rough summary or sketch of the main points. The verb followed naturally, meaning to draw the outer edge of something or to set out its main features, and the '-ed' ending simply marks the past. Because the word is a transparent compound, the spelling trap is small, but writers sometimes pause over keeping both the 'out' and the 'line' intact before adding the ending.

How the word is built

• out- (forth, completely)
• line (from Latin linea: a linen thread, a line)
• -ed (past tense suffix)