Respected

How to spell respected

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce respected

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does respected mean?

1. adjectiveAdmired and regarded highly by others, usually because of merit, integrity, or achievement.
2. verbPast tense of respect: felt or showed admiration or consideration for someone or something.

Respected in a sentence

• adjective

  She is a widely respected surgeon at the city hospital.

• verb

  The staff always respected her honest approach to difficult decisions.

• adjective

  The firm hired a respected economist to review its forecasts.

• verb

  He respected the rules even when no one was watching.

Where does respected come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb respicere, which literally meant 'to look back at' or 'to gaze upon', formed from the prefix re- ('back' or 'again') and specere ('to look'). From that physical act of turning to look at someone, the sense shifted toward 'to regard with consideration or esteem', because to look back at a person was to take notice of them and grant them attention. The noun respectus passed through Old French as 'respect' and entered English in the late 1300s, with the verb following soon after. The same specere root sits inside a whole family of familiar words such as 'inspect', 'spectacle', and 'spectator', all of which involve looking. Knowing that the core is spect ('look') helps fix the spelling: it is one c, one t, and the trap is simply hearing the unstressed middle vowel clearly.

How the word is built

• re- (back, again)
• spect (from Latin specere: to look)
• -ed (past tense / adjectival suffix)