Wondered

How to spell wondered

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce wondered

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does wondered mean?

1. verbFelt curious about something or asked oneself a question in the past, or felt amazement.

Wondered in a sentence

• She wondered whether the train would arrive on time.

• He wondered how much the repairs would eventually cost.

Where does wondered come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense of 'wonder', which descends from the Old English noun 'wundor', meaning a marvel, a portent, or something that fills the mind with astonishment. The same root runs right across the Germanic languages, surviving in the modern German 'Wunder' and Dutch 'wonder', though the ultimate source beyond Germanic is genuinely obscure and no convincing Latin or Greek cousin has ever been pinned down. From the early sense of a marvellous object, English developed the verb 'to wonder', meaning both to feel amazed and, by the Middle Ages, to be curious or to ask oneself a question. The familiar phrase 'wonders never cease' preserves the older noun, while the verb gave us the everyday 'I wondered why'. The chief spelling trap is not the ending but the vowel: 'wondered' begins with 'wo' and is easily muddled in writing with the unrelated 'wandered', which means to roam.

How the word is built

• wonder (Old English wundor: a marvel, an astonishing thing)
• -ed (past tense suffix)