Printed

How to spell printed

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce printed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does printed mean?

1. verbProduced text or images on paper or another surface using a press, printer, or similar machine.
2. adjectiveReproduced in ink on paper or fabric, as opposed to handwritten or digital.

Printed in a sentence

• verb

  The office printed three hundred copies of the report before the meeting.

• adjective

  The museum still keeps a printed catalogue alongside the online version.

• verb

  She printed the boarding passes at the airport kiosk.

• adjective

  She chose a printed cotton fabric with a floral design for the curtains.

Where does printed come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past form of the verb 'print', which entered English in the 1300s from Old French 'preindre' and its related noun 'priente', meaning an impression or a mark made by pressing. Those French words trace back to the Latin verb 'premere', which literally meant 'to press' and gave us a whole family of relatives including 'press', 'pressure', and 'imprint'. The original idea was purely physical: a shape squeezed or stamped into a soft surface left a 'print'. When movable type and the printing press transformed Europe in the fifteenth century, the word naturally extended to pressing inked letters onto paper, and the regular past form simply adds '-ed'. The spelling is straightforward once you remember the silent role of that single 't' before the ending, since the word keeps the full 'print' intact and tacks '-ed' onto it.

How the word is built

• print (from Latin premere 'to press')
• -ed (past-tense / participle suffix)