Rigged

How to spell rigged

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce rigged

What does rigged mean?

1. verbArranged or manipulated in advance to produce an unfair or fraudulent outcome.
2. verbFitted out or assembled with the necessary equipment, ropes, or gear.

Rigged in a sentence

• The auditors concluded that the contest had been rigged from the start.

• The yacht was fully rigged and ready to leave the harbour by dawn.

• Investors complained that the auction was rigged to favour a single bidder.

• The stage crew had rigged the lighting above the platform overnight.

Where does rigged come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This is the past tense of the verb 'rig', a word whose deepest origins are genuinely murky but which is usually traced to a Scandinavian source; compare the Norwegian dialect word 'rigga', meaning to bind up or wrap, and similar Old Norse-related forms describing the act of making something ready. It surfaced in English around the 1480s as a nautical term for fitting a ship with its ropes, sails, and tackle, the gear collectively still called 'rigging'. From the literal idea of arranging equipment, the verb drifted into the broader sense of setting something up or dressing someone out, as in being 'rigged out' in fine clothes. By the early nineteenth century, especially in American political and commercial slang, it had picked up the dishonest meaning of arranging an outcome in advance for unfair gain, as in a rigged market or a rigged contest. The doubled g in the spelling simply follows the regular English rule that a short stressed vowel doubles the final consonant before -ed, the same pattern seen in 'begged' and 'tagged'.

How the word is built

• rig (to fit out, set up, or manipulate)
• -ed (past tense and past participle suffix; the final consonant doubles after a short stressed vowel)