Promised

How to spell promised

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce promised

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does promised mean?

1. verbGave an assurance that one would or would not do something, in the past.
2. adjectivePledged or assured to someone, as in something that has been guaranteed.

Promised in a sentence

• verb

  The contractor promised to finish the kitchen before the holidays.

• adjective

  The promised refund finally appeared in her account three weeks later.

• verb

  She promised her parents she would call every weekend.

• adjective

  Workers were still waiting for the promised bonus at the end of the year.

Where does promised come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past form of 'promise', which traces back to the Latin promittere, literally 'to send forth' or 'to put forward', from pro 'forward' and mittere 'to send'. The neuter past participle promissum came to mean 'a thing pledged', and by the late 1300s English had borrowed it as 'promise' to name an assurance given to another. The verb form acquired its regular '-ed' ending in line with native English grammar, so the trap here is that the spoken ending sounds like a 't' yet is still written '-ed'. The same mittere root, meaning 'to send', sits inside a large family of English words including 'mission', 'submit', 'transmit' and 'permit'. Remembering that 'promise' keeps a single 's' before the '-ed' helps avoid the common doubling error.

How the word is built

• promis- (from Latin promissum: a thing sent forth, a pledge)
• -ed (past tense/participle suffix)