Remarked

How to spell remarked

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce remarked

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does remarked mean?

1. verbSaid something as a casual comment or observation.

Remarked in a sentence

• She remarked that the traffic had been unusually light that morning.

• The inspector remarked on how clean the kitchen looked.

Where does remarked come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the past tense of 'remark', which English took from the French verb 'remarquer', meaning 'to mark out' or 'to take note of'. That French word was built from the prefix 're-', used here as an intensifier, joined to 'marquer', meaning 'to mark', which itself goes back to a Germanic root for a sign or boundary that also gave English the everyday word 'mark'. When the word arrived in English in the 1600s it first carried the literal sense of noticing something or fixing it in the mind, and only later did it settle into its common modern meaning of making a spoken or written observation. The spelling keeps the visible English word 'mark' at its centre, which is a useful anchor: 'remarked' is simply 're-' plus 'mark' plus '-ed', with no hidden doubling or silent letters to trip the writer.

How the word is built

• re- (intensive/again)
• mark (to notice, observe)
• -ed (past tense suffix)