Ratified

How to spell ratified

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce ratified

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ratified mean?

1. verbGave formal consent to or approved an agreement, treaty, or decision, making it officially valid.

Ratified in a sentence

• The board ratified the new budget at this morning's meeting.

• All member states have now ratified the trade agreement.

Where does ratified come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past tense of the verb 'ratify', which English borrowed from Old French ratifier in the late 1300s. The French word came from the Medieval Latin ratificare, built from ratus, meaning 'fixed', 'settled', or 'reckoned', and facere, meaning 'to make' or 'to do'. The root ratus was itself the past participle of the Latin verb reri, 'to think', 'to reckon', or 'to calculate', so to ratify something was literally to make it reckoned and fixed, that is, to give it formal approval. The same ratus root sits inside the everyday words 'rate', 'ratio', and 'rational', all of which involve calculation or reckoning. Because the spelling keeps a single 't' and turns the final 'y' into 'i' before the ending, writers sometimes hesitate over doubling the consonant or keeping the 'y', which is the main trap here.

How the word is built

• rat- (from Latin ratus: fixed, settled)
• -ify (to make)
• -ed (past tense suffix)