Practiced

How to spell practiced

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce practiced

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does practiced mean?

1. verbPast tense of practice: performed an activity repeatedly to improve a skill, or carried on a profession.
2. adjectiveExpert or skilled as a result of repeated experience.

Practiced in a sentence

• verb

  She practiced the presentation three times before the meeting.

• adjective

  The surgeon's practiced hands moved with quiet confidence.

• verb

  He practiced law in the city for almost twenty years.

• adjective

  With a practiced eye, the appraiser spotted the forgery at once.

Where does practiced come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek praktikos, meaning 'concerned with action' or 'fit for doing', which was built on the verb prassein 'to do or accomplish'. It travelled into Late Latin as practica, then into Medieval Latin as practicare 'to perform or carry out', and reached English through Old French practiser in the late 1300s. In British and Canadian usage the spelling split into the noun 'practice' and the verb 'practise', following the same logic as 'advice' and 'advise'. American English simplified that distinction, using 'practice' for both noun and verb, so the past-tense and adjectival form is spelled with a c as 'practiced'; that single American convention is exactly why the c-versus-s ending feels so slippery to anyone who reads British text.

How the word is built

• practic(e) (to do, carry out, from Greek praktikos)
• -ed (past tense / adjectival suffix)

British and American spelling

Practiced is the American spelling. British English spells it practised.