Used

How to spell used

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce used

What does used mean?

1. verbPast tense of use: employed something for a purpose.
2. verbFormerly did something regularly, in the phrase 'used to'.
3. adjectivePreviously owned or already employed by someone else; second-hand.

Used in a sentence

• verb

  She used a sharp knife to slice the bread.

• verb

  They used to live in a small village before moving to the city.

• adjective

  He bought a used car to save money on his first vehicle.

• verb

  The team used the new software to track every order.

• verb

  I used to walk to work every morning until the office relocated.

• adjective

  The shop sells used furniture at a fraction of the retail price.

Where does used come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The base verb comes from the Latin uti, meaning 'to make use of' or 'to employ', which passed into Old French as user before reaching English in the 1200s. The form 'used' is simply that verb with the regular past-tense ending -ed attached, and from its earliest days it carried two strands of meaning: the plain sense of having employed something, and the sense of being accustomed to a thing through repetition. The familiar phrase 'used to', describing a former habit, grew out of that second strand by the 1500s, and over time its pronunciation hardened from a /z/ sound into a softer /s/ sound, which is exactly why people sometimes write the wrong ending. The adjective meaning 'second-hand' is a later, very practical development: an object that has already been employed by someone is a 'used' object. The spelling trap is small but persistent, because the spoken 'use to' in casual speech tempts writers to drop the d that the written form always keeps.

How the word is built

• use (from Latin uti, to employ)
• -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)