-ed

//d// suffix

suffix ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Suffix
  1. 1
    Used to form past tenses of (regular) verbs. In linguistics, it is used for the base form of any past form. See -t for a variant. morpheme

    "live + -ed → lived"

  2. 2
    Used to form past participles of (regular) verbs. See -en and -t for variants. morpheme

    "point + -ed → pointed"

  3. 3
    Used to form possessional adjectives from nouns, in the sense of having the object represented by the noun. morpheme

    "point + -ed → pointed"

  4. 4
    As an extension of the above, used to form possessional adjectives from adjective-noun pairs. morpheme

    "red + hair + -ed → red-haired"

Antonyms

All antonyms
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Example

More examples

"Once upon a time a little princess lived with her mother in a lonely castle."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English -ede, -eden, from Old English -ode, -odon (class 2 weak past ending), from Proto-Germanic *-ōd-, *-ōdēdun. Cognate with Saterland Frisian -ede (“-ed”, first person singular past indicative ending), Low German -de (“-ed”, first and third person singular past indicative ending), Dutch -d (“-ed”), German -t (“-ed”), Swedish -ade (“-ed”), Icelandic -aði (“-ed”).

Etymology 2

From Middle English -ed, from Old English -od (class 2 weak past participle), from Proto-Germanic *-ōdaz. Cognate with Saterland Frisian -ed.

Etymology 3

From Middle English -ed, from Old English -od (adjective suffix), from Proto-Germanic *-ōdaz, from Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂tos. While identical in appearance to the past participle of class 2 weak verbs, this suffix was attached directly to nouns without any intervening verb. Cognate with Latin -ātus (whence also a doublet -ate).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.