Sheltered

How to spell sheltered

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sheltered

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sheltered mean?

1. adjectiveProtected from harsh weather, danger, or difficult experiences.
2. verbPast tense of shelter: gave protection or took cover from danger or bad weather.

Sheltered in a sentence

• adjective

  The cottage sits in a sheltered valley where the wind rarely reaches.

• verb

  They sheltered under the bridge until the rain eased.

• adjective

  She had a sheltered upbringing and knew little of life beyond the village.

• verb

  The family sheltered several refugees during the long siege.

Where does sheltered come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word shelter first appears in English in the sixteenth century, and its exact origin is genuinely debated. The most widely accepted account traces it to the Old English word scieldtruma, a compound of scield meaning 'shield' and truma meaning 'troop' or 'band', which described a body of soldiers locked together behind their shields to form a protective wall. Over time the sense softened from this military formation to any kind of cover that keeps off wind, rain, or danger. The form sheltered is simply shelter plus the regular -ed ending, used both as the past tense of the verb and as an adjective. Because the root is one solid word and the suffix attaches without any change, the spelling holds no doubled letters, which is why it rarely trips up writers who already know shelter.

How the word is built

• shelter (a protective cover or refuge)
• -ed (past tense / adjective suffix)