Stipulated

How to spell stipulated

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce stipulated

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does stipulated mean?

1. verbSpecified or required something as a formal condition of an agreement.

Stipulated in a sentence

• The contract stipulated that payment was due within thirty days.

• Their lease stipulated that no pets were allowed on the premises.

Where does stipulated come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin verb stipulari, meaning 'to demand a formal guarantee' or 'to bargain for a promise'. In Roman law a stipulatio was a binding spoken contract in which one party formally promised something to another, so the sense of laying down firm conditions has been present from the very beginning. The deeper root is genuinely uncertain: some scholars connect it to stipulus, an old word meaning 'firm' or 'fixed', while a popular older suggestion ties it to stipula, meaning 'a stalk' or 'a straw', from the idea that parties once snapped a straw to seal a bargain. English took the verb 'stipulate' in the early 1600s, and 'stipulated' is simply its past form, still anchored to that original legal sense of setting out a precise, agreed condition. The single 'p' and the unstressed middle syllable (stip-YOU-lay-ted) are where adults tend to hesitate when writing it.

How the word is built

• stipul- (from Latin stipulari: to bargain, demand a formal promise)
• -ate (verb)
• -ed (past tense)