Paced

How to spell paced

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce paced

What does paced mean?

1. verbWalked back and forth with steady, measured steps, often out of worry or impatience.
2. verbControlled the speed or rate of an activity so that effort or progress was distributed evenly.

Paced in a sentence

• He paced the hospital corridor while waiting for the surgeon.

• She paced herself carefully over the first ten kilometres of the marathon.

• She paced the kitchen as she rehearsed her presentation aloud.

• The lecturer paced the course so that the hardest topics came after the break.

Where does paced come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past tense of the verb 'pace', which traces back to the Latin noun passus, meaning 'a step' or 'a stride', the distance covered by one full movement of the legs. The same root gave the Romans their unit of measure, the pace, and English later borrowed the word through Old French pas, which referred to a step in walking. By the late Middle Ages 'pace' was an English noun for a single stride and for the rate at which someone moves, and the verb followed, meaning to walk with measured steps or to set a rate of movement. The reflexive sense, to pace oneself, grew naturally from the idea of controlling one's rate so as not to tire too quickly. The spelling trap is small but real: the soft 'c' before 'e' makes the word sound like it could be written with an 's', yet it keeps the 'c' throughout, and the final cluster is simply 'ced'.

How the word is built

• pace (from Latin passus: a step or stride)
• -ed (past tense/participle suffix)

Words that sound like paced

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• paste: A soft, moist, thick mixture that can be spread or moulded.