Stranded

How to spell stranded

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce stranded

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does stranded mean?

1. adjectiveLeft in a difficult place with no way to leave or move on.
2. verbPast tense of strand: left someone or something in a helpless position with no way out.

Stranded in a sentence

• adjective

  The stranded passengers waited hours for a replacement coach.

• verb

  The sudden cancellation stranded thousands of travellers overnight.

• adjective

  A flat battery left her stranded in an empty car park at midnight.

• verb

  The falling tide stranded the small fishing boat on the mudflats.

Where does stranded come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the Old English noun 'strand', which meant the shore or the edge of the sea where the water meets the land. From that came the verb 'to strand', meaning to drive or run a boat aground onto that shore, leaving it stuck and helpless once the tide withdrew. By the early 1600s the past form 'stranded' described any vessel beached in this way, and the image of being left helpless and unable to move spread to people and situations more generally, which is the everyday meaning today. A separate and probably unrelated noun 'strand', meaning a single thread, fibre, or twist of rope, also exists in English and feeds the technical sense of something made of such threads; its origin is genuinely uncertain, perhaps from an Old French word for a rope cord. The seafaring root is the easiest hook for the spelling: picture a boat left high on the strand, then simply add -ed.

How the word is built

• strand (shore, also a single thread or fibre)
• -ed (past tense / adjective suffix)