Stripped

How to spell stripped

8 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce stripped

What does stripped mean?

1. verbPast tense of strip: removed an outer layer, covering, or contents from something.
2. adjectiveHaving had a covering, contents, or finish removed; left bare.

Stripped in a sentence

• verb

  The decorators stripped the old wallpaper before painting.

• adjective

  The stripped pine table looked far better without its old varnish.

• verb

  Thieves stripped the abandoned car of every valuable part.

• adjective

  The stripped walls revealed the original brickwork underneath.

Where does stripped come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense and past participle of the verb 'strip', which descends from the Old English 'strīepan', meaning 'to plunder' or 'to rob someone of their possessions'. That early sense was forceful, suggesting the violent stripping away of goods, and it has cousins across the Germanic languages, such as Old High German 'stroufen', meaning 'to slip off'. Over the centuries the meaning broadened from plundering people to the gentler ideas of removing clothing, peeling away a covering, or clearing a surface back to bare material. The single 'p' of the base verb doubles when the '-ed' ending is added, following the regular English rule that a short stressed vowel followed by a single consonant takes a doubled consonant before a suffix; that doubling is exactly the spot writers second-guess. The same pattern governs the related noun 'stripe' and the word 'strap', all sharing a common Germanic root tied to long, thin things.

How the word is built

• strip (to remove a layer or covering)
• -p- (doubled consonant before vowel suffix)
• -ed (past tense suffix)