Stood

How to spell stood

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce stood

What does stood mean?

1. verbPast tense and past participle of 'stand': remained upright on the feet, or was positioned in a particular place.

Stood in a sentence

• She stood at the back of the room during the entire meeting.

• The old farmhouse stood empty for nearly a decade.

Where does stood come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense and past participle of 'stand', and it comes straight from Old English. The verb was standan, 'to take or hold a position on one's feet', and its past tense was stōd, with that long 'o' sound that the double 'oo' spelling still preserves today. The root traces back to a Proto-Germanic form sta-, related to the same ancient root that gives us 'stable', 'state', and 'statue', all carrying the core idea of being fixed or set in place. English kept the old vowel-change pattern (stand to stood) rather than adding a regular '-ed' ending, which is why the word looks irregular. The double 'oo' is what trips a few writers, since the vowel is short like 'good' and 'wood', not long like 'food', yet the spelling is the same.

How the word is built

• stood (irregular past tense and past participle of 'stand', from Old English stōd)