-ed
Used to form possessional adjectives from nouns, in the sense of having the object represented by the noun.
Suffix morpheme
- Used to form possessional adjectives from nouns, in the sense of having the object represented by the noun.
- point + -ed → pointed
- horn + -ed → horned
- hoof + -ed → hooved
Antonyms: -less
- As an extension of the above, used to form possessional adjectives from adjective-noun pairs.
- red + hair + -ed → red-haired
- left + hand + -ed → left-handed
- two + prong(s) + -ed → two-pronged
Origin
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), Proto-Slavic *-atъ.
Forms
Related
Suffix morpheme
- Used to form past participles of (regular) verbs. See -en and -t for variants.
- point + -ed → pointed
- He has pointed at the dog.
- There's the abandoned mineshaft.
Origin
From Middle English -ed, from the merger of Old English -od (class 2 weak past participle) and -ed (class 1 weak past participle), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *-ōdaz and *-idaz respectively. Cognate with Saterland Frisian -ed.
Forms
Suffix morpheme
- 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.
- live + -ed → lived
- Once upon a time a little princess lived with her mother in a lonely castle.
- Jose phoned five minutes ago.
Origin
From Middle English -ede, -ed. During the Middle English period, this increasingly standard -ed ending largely absorbed the class 1 weak past ending (-de) through morphological leveling. However, many class 1 verbs resisted this leveling to become modern irregular verbs (such as kept and left). This resistance was driven by phonotactics: attaching the consonant suffix directly to the stem often triggered pre-cluster vowel shortening (and consonant devoicing) in Early Middle English, creating a stark vowel alternation between the present and past tense that anchored the irregular form. Conversely, verbs that lacked this stark alternation (such as deem, where the early past tense demde remained insufficiently distinct from the present stem) were highly vulnerable to leveling, adopting the syllabic -ed to ensure the past tense was clearly marked. In modern usage, this morphological...