Slipped

How to spell slipped

7 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce slipped

What does slipped mean?

1. verbPast tense of slip: slid suddenly, moved quietly, or made a small mistake.

Slipped in a sentence

• She slipped on the wet tiles and grabbed the rail.

• He quietly slipped out of the meeting before the questions began.

Where does slipped come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense of the verb 'slip', which English inherited from a Germanic source, probably the Middle Low German or Middle Dutch 'slippen', meaning to slide or glide smoothly. The root sense was always about a quick, often unintended movement across a slick surface, and that idea broadened into figurative uses such as letting a remark 'slip out' or a chance 'slipping away'. The word appears in English from around the 1300s and is related to the same family that gives us 'slippery' and 'slip-up'. When the verb takes its past tense ending, the single short vowel forces the final consonant to double, producing 'slipped' rather than 'sliped', and that doubling is the only real spelling decision a writer has to make. The same doubling rule explains pairs like 'hop, hopped' and 'tip, tipped'.

How the word is built

• slip (Middle English slippen: to slide)
• -ped (past tense; final p doubled after a short vowel)