Unveiled

How to spell unveiled

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce unveiled

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unveiled mean?

1. verbMade something previously hidden or secret known or visible to others.
2. adjectiveHaving had a covering removed, or shown openly without concealment.

Unveiled in a sentence

• verb

  The company unveiled its new flagship phone at the conference.

• adjective

  The unveiled portrait drew gasps from the gallery visitors.

• verb

  The council unveiled plans for a new bypass around the town.

• adjective

  With his unveiled intentions now obvious, the team felt uneasy.

Where does unveiled come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The heart of this word is 'veil', which came into English in the early 1200s from the Anglo-Norman and Old French 'veile', itself drawn from the Latin 'velum', meaning a sail, a curtain, or a covering cloth. The same Latin 'velum' lies behind the word 'reveal', so the family connection between covering and uncovering runs deep. The verb 'unveil' was assembled in English around the late 1500s by adding the native prefix 'un-', meaning 'to reverse an action', to 'veil', giving the literal sense of drawing a cloth away to expose what was hidden. From the physical act of pulling a covering off a statue or monument, the meaning broadened to the figurative sense of making plans, products, or secrets publicly known. The past tense 'unveiled' simply adds the regular '-ed' ending, and the spelling trap is the 'ei' in 'veil', which follows the older covering-cloth root rather than the familiar 'i before e' habit.

How the word is built

• un- (reverse, remove)
• veil (covering, from Latin velum)
• -ed (past tense suffix)