Returned

How to spell returned

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce returned

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does returned mean?

1. verbPast tense of return: came or went back, or gave something back.

Returned in a sentence

• She returned to the office after her holiday.

• He returned the faulty kettle for a full refund.

Where does returned come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the past tense of the verb return, which English took from the Old French retorner, meaning 'to turn back' or 'to come back'. That French verb was built from the prefix re-, meaning 'back' or 'again', combined with torner 'to turn', which descended from the Latin tornare, 'to turn on a lathe' or 'to round off'. The Latin verb in turn came from tornus, a 'lathe' or 'turner's tool', a word the Romans had borrowed from the Greek tornos for the same instrument. English adopted return in the 1300s, first in the literal sense of physically coming back to a place, then quickly extending to giving something back and to producing a yield. The spelling is reliably regular: the base verb return simply takes the ordinary -ed ending, so the only thing to watch is keeping the single n before adding -ed.

How the word is built

• re- (back)
• turn (to rotate, from Latin tornare)
• -ed (past tense suffix)