Shaped

How to spell shaped

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce shaped

What does shaped mean?

1. verbFormed, moulded, or gave a particular form to something in the past.
2. adjectiveHaving a specified form or outline, usually used in combination.

Shaped in a sentence

• verb

  The potter shaped the wet clay into a tall vase.

• adjective

  The cake was shaped like a perfect star for the party.

• verb

  Years of training shaped her into a confident manager.

• adjective

  She bought a heart shaped pendant for the anniversary.

Where does shaped come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense and participle of the verb 'shape', which descends from the Old English 'scieppan', meaning 'to create, form, or destine'. That verb is closely tied to the noun 'gesceap', which meant a creation, a form, or even a person's fate or destiny, so the earliest sense carried a strong flavour of moulding or ordaining how something would turn out. The root is purely Germanic, with relatives surviving in modern German 'schaffen' (to create) and the suffix '-ship' in words like 'friendship', which originally meant the state or shape of a thing. Over the centuries the spelling settled with a long 'a' sound spelled with the 'a-consonant-e' pattern, and adding the regular '-ed' ending produces 'shaped'. Because the silent 'e' of 'shape' is dropped before '-ed', the trap for writers is simply remembering the single 'p', not a doubled one.

How the word is built

• shape (form, outline)
• -ed (past tense / participle suffix)