Pierced

How to spell pierced

7 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce pierced

What does pierced mean?

1. verbMade a hole in or passed sharply through something.
2. adjectiveHaving a hole made through it, especially a part of the body fitted with jewellery.

Pierced in a sentence

• verb

  The thorn pierced the leather of her glove.

• adjective

  She wore tiny gold studs in her newly pierced ears.

• verb

  A single nail pierced the tyre on the motorway.

• adjective

  The gift shop sold delicate rings for pierced noses.

Where does pierced come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the past form of the verb 'pierce', which came into English in the early 1300s from the Old French 'percer', meaning 'to bore through' or 'to penetrate'. The Old French verb is thought to derive from an unrecorded Vulgar Latin form, possibly 'pertusiare', built from the Latin 'pertundere', meaning 'to thrust through' or 'to perforate', a compound of 'per' (through) and 'tundere' (to beat or strike). The original sense of physically making a hole has stayed remarkably stable over the centuries, while figurative uses (a sound that pierces the air, a cold that pierces the bones) grew up alongside it. The spelling keeps the 'ie' order that trips writers up, even though it obediently follows the old 'i before e' guideline. The same Latin 'per' (through) sits inside many familiar words such as 'perforate' and 'permeate', which can help fix the route the meaning travelled.

How the word is built

• pierce (from Old French percer: to penetrate, bore through)
• -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)