Treasured

How to spell treasured

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce treasured

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does treasured mean?

1. adjectiveGreatly valued and cherished, kept because it matters deeply.
2. verbHeld something dear and valued it highly, in the past tense.

Treasured in a sentence

• adjective

  The old photograph is her most treasured possession.

• verb

  She always treasured the quiet mornings before work began.

• adjective

  Those treasured family recipes were passed down for generations.

• verb

  They treasured every letter their grandmother had written.

Where does treasured come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the past form of 'treasure', which came into English in the 1100s from the Old French 'tresor', meaning a hoard of stored riches. That French word descended from the Latin 'thesaurus', a storehouse or accumulated store of valuables, which itself was borrowed from the Greek 'thesauros', meaning a treasure house or strongroom. Over time the sense softened from literal piled-up gold to anything held precious, so that today we speak of treasured memories as readily as treasured coins. The same Greek root survives almost unchanged in the modern word 'thesaurus', a stored collection of words, and noticing that link helps explain why 'treasure' keeps its 'eas' spelling rather than the simpler sound it makes. The doubled care point for writers is the soft middle 's', sounded like the 's' in 'measure', and the plain '-ed' ending added to the full word treasure.

How the word is built

• treasur- (from treasure: stored wealth)
• -ed (past tense / adjective suffix)