Permitted

How to spell permitted

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce permitted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does permitted mean?

1. verbPast tense and past participle of permit: gave formal consent for something, or was officially allowed.

Permitted in a sentence

• The landlord permitted a small dog in the flat.

• Smoking is no longer permitted inside the building.

Where does permitted come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past tense and past participle of 'permit', which English took from the Latin verb permittere. That verb was built from per-, meaning 'through' or 'thoroughly', and mittere, meaning 'to send' or 'to let go', so the literal idea was to let something pass through or release it. By the time it reached late Latin it carried the sense of allowing or granting, and English adopted it in the fifteenth century with that meaning of giving leave or consent. The same mittere root sits inside a large family of English words, including 'mission', 'transmit', 'submit' and 'commit', all of which share the idea of sending. The spelling trap lives in the ending: the base 'permit' stresses its final syllable, so when a suffix is added the final t doubles to 'permitted', while the single m never doubles.

How the word is built

• per- (through, thoroughly)
• mit (from Latin mittere: to send, let go)
• -ted (past-tense suffix with doubled t)