Prepared

How to spell prepared

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce prepared

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prepared mean?

1. adjectiveMade ready in advance; equipped or willing to do something.
2. verbMade something ready or put it together in advance (past tense of prepare).

Prepared in a sentence

• adjective

  She felt fully prepared for the job interview after a week of practice.

• verb

  She prepared a detailed report for the morning meeting.

• adjective

  The team was well prepared for the sudden change in schedule.

• verb

  The chef prepared three courses before the guests arrived.

Where does prepared come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb praeparare, which combined prae, meaning 'before' or 'beforehand', with parare, meaning 'to make ready' or 'to furnish'. The literal sense was therefore 'to make ready in advance', which is essentially the meaning we still carry today. English took it in through Old French preparer in the late fifteenth century, and the past form prepared settled quickly into both verb and adjective uses. The same parare root sits inside a whole family of familiar words, including 'repair', 'apparatus', and 'parade', all of which share the underlying idea of putting things in order or making them ready. The spelling trap is the second syllable: it is pronounced like 'pair' but is written par, because it preserves that Latin parare root rather than the look of the sound.

How the word is built

• pre- (before, beforehand)
• par (from Latin parare: to make ready)
• -ed (past tense/participle suffix)