Spotted

How to spell spotted

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce spotted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does spotted mean?

1. verbPast tense of spot: caught sight of or noticed someone or something.
2. adjectiveMarked or covered with spots or small rounded patches of colour.

Spotted in a sentence

• verb

  She spotted her old colleague across the crowded station platform.

• adjective

  The children chose a spotted puppy from the litter.

• verb

  The auditor spotted an error in the quarterly accounts.

• adjective

  She wore a red spotted scarf to the meeting.

Where does spotted come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word 'spot' appears in Middle English around the 1200s, meaning a small mark or stain, and it is most likely native, related to the Old English 'splott' (a patch of land or a blot) and to similar words in Middle Dutch and Low German for a speck or blemish. The original sense was the literal mark on a surface, and from there the meaning broadened to a particular place or location, and eventually to the verb 'to spot', meaning to mark with spots and later, from the 1700s, to catch sight of or detect something. The form 'spotted' is the regular past tense and past participle, and the same form serves as an adjective describing anything covered in spots. The single 't' of 'spot' doubles before the '-ed' because the word is one short stressed syllable ending in a single consonant, which is the rule that also gives us 'stopped' and 'patted'. That doubling is the only real spelling decision in the word, and remembering the simple stem 'spot' keeps it straightforward.

How the word is built

• spot (mark, blot)
• -t- (doubled consonant)
• -ed (past tense / adjective suffix)