Sighted

How to spell sighted

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sighted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sighted mean?

1. adjectiveHaving the ability to see; not blind.
2. verbPast tense of sight: caught view of something, often far off.

Sighted in a sentence

• adjective

  The charity pairs blind clients with sighted volunteers for shopping trips.

• verb

  The lookout sighted a cargo ship on the horizon just before dawn.

• adjective

  The guide dog allows her to navigate as confidently as any sighted pedestrian.

• verb

  Hikers sighted a rare eagle circling above the ridge.

Where does sighted come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the native English noun 'sight', which traces back to the Old English 'sihth' or 'gesiht', meaning the faculty of seeing or the thing that is seen. That noun belongs to the same Germanic family as the verb 'see' (Old English 'seon'), and the spelling kept the old 'gh', once pronounced as a throaty sound that has since fallen silent, which is exactly why the word now rhymes with 'kite' yet still carries those quiet letters. By adding the suffix '-ed' the language formed both an adjective, describing someone who can see, and a past-tense verb, describing the act of having spotted something at a distance. The 'spotted at a distance' sense grew up especially in nautical and military use, where a lookout 'sighted' land or a sail. The trap in writing it is purely aural: 'sighted', 'cited', and 'sited' sound identical, so only the meaning tells you which spelling, and only this one keeps the eye-and-vision 'sigh' root.

How the word is built

• sight (from Old English sihth: vision, thing seen)
• -ed (adjective/past-tense suffix)

Words that sound like sighted

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• cited: Quoted or referred to a source, authority, or example as evidence or justification, or formally summoned or commended.