Sent Vs Sended: What’s The Correct Spelling Of This Word?

Sent vs sended; which one is the correct past tense or past participle of the word send? You have probably heard people using both words alternatively. However, it helps to clarify the correct one between the two to avoid making mistakes, especially in written speech.

Sent is the past tense or past participle of the word send. Send means “to cause or enable to go” or “cause something to be conveyed to a specific destination,” for example, “send a message.” In contrast, sended is an obsolete spelling for sent. Therefore, sent is the correct spelling of the two.

English is among the most spoken and vast languages in the world. That means getting confused or making mistakes while speaking or writing in English is easy. This article focuses on the words “sent” and “sended,” especially their usage and differences.

Definitions Of Sent And Sended

Something interesting about some English speakers is that they understand how to use specific words but cannot explain their definitions. For example, a person may correctly use the word sent in a sentence but cannot explain its definition when asked.

That tells you that differentiating confusing words is hard for most people. Therefore, we saw it wise to start differentiating the words sent and sended by explaining their definitions.

However, before getting into the definitions, it would help to start by defining the word “send.” Both terms are forms of send. Send means “to cause, permit, cause to go, cause to be conveyed, or transmitted to a destination.

Let’s look at some examples of the word send in sentences:

• Kindly send the latter to the Church before noon.
• I will send you the balance early tomorrow morning.
• Politicians want to send a message to their opponents through campaign advertisements.

The definition of send is quite simple. So, now that you know it, let us look at the definitions of “sent” and “sended.”

Definitions Of Sent

Sent is the simple past tense and past participle of the word “send.” So, it expresses a completed action of sending. For example, “Jane sent the note to the Governor before he got on air for the interview.”

A more direct definition of sent is “caused or enabled to go.” An example sentence is, “Upon the organization’s request, we sent the messenger with the signed documents.”

Sent also means “caused to be conveyed to a specific destination.” An example in a sentence is, “The students sent letters to the board regarding their teacher’s misbehavior.”

Sent as an action word means “propelled or driven.” Here is an example in a sentence, “John was so angry when he sent a punch to Michael’s jaw.”

Other sources define sent differently but with close contexts. Here are the other definitions.

1. Meaning “caused to occur, emit, or utter.” For example, “The king of the jungle sent an angry roar through the woods when he fell into the trap.”
2. Sent means “transmitted.” For example, in a sentence, “The scientists sent an electromagnetic wave through the conductor during the experiment.”
3. In slang, sent means “delighted or excited.” Here is an example of this word as slang in a sentence, “The organizers sent the concert-goers when they announced Nicki as the surprise performer.”
4. An unpopular meaning of sent is “a subdivision of a currency equal to a hundredth of an Estonian Koon.” For example, “The Estonian Sent is not worth much.”

Definitions Of Sended

Most English dictionaries refer to sended as an obsolete spelling of sent. Therefore, it is no longer an accepted spelling for sent. The scrabble dictionary recognizes it as a correct word, but make sure you avoid it in formal and informal sentences.

How To Properly Use Sent And Sended In A Sentence

Using words in sentences is easy if you know their meanings. Therefore, after reading the definitions section above, you should be confident enough to use these words in sentences. But before that, we have prepared this section with guidelines on how to use sent and sended in sentences of varying contexts.

How To Use The Word Sent

Sent is a simple past tense or past participle of the word send. Simple past tense is a word that expresses actions that started and ended at a specific point. So, use sent in a sentence to explain something; the action of conveying something started and ended at a point. Like “The sent message did not get a reply.

A past participle also expresses a completed action. So, you can use the word sent to express “a completed action of conveying something.” In a sentence, “The students sent letters to their pen pals yesterday.”

How To Use The Word Sended

We do not recommend using this word in sentences because it is an archaic past tense or past participle of send. But since the scrabble dictionary recognizes this word as a correct English word, use it while playing scrabble, but not in official writing.

Sent Vs Sended: More To Know Besides The Correct Spelling

The key difference between these words is their spelling. However, besides this, some other things you should know about the words are:

Popularity And Correctness

The word sent is the correct spelling for the simple past tense and past participle of send. Therefore, it is naturally the most popular of these two words. Additionally, sended is an obsolete word. It was popular at one point, but it no longer is.

History And Etymology

The word sended was the accepted term way before the Late 14th century. The word sent came about in the mid-14th century, taking over from sended. That tells you the word sent has been used for many centuries.

Syllables

The word sent is a mono-syllable. That means it only has one syllable. For this reason, it is easy to pronounce. Its proper pronunciation is “/sent/.” On the other hand, the word sended has two syllables. So, the proper pronunciation is “/sen-ded/.”

List Of Examples Of Sent And Sended Use In Sentences

The content above concludes that the correct spelling is sent, so you can now start constructing correct sentences while avoiding incorrect spelling. Here are examples of sentences featuring “sent.” We have used the correct word to avoid confusion.

Example sentences of the word sent

1. We sent the kids to the market in the morning, only to arrive three hours later.
2. The company sent a messenger to the courthouse to deliver the notarized documents.
3. My mother sent Jamie to the store for cold milk.
4. The students sent thousands of letters to the commissioner asking for a new music hall.
5. Loise sent Mike to his father’s house for the weekend.
6. The teachers sent the students to the principal’s office after misbehaving.
7. George sent a message to his father-in-law regarding her wife’s illness.
8. All the letters were sent early in the morning.
9. John sent the newcomers to the auditorium for the mandatory orientation.
10. I sent the book back to its owner after reading the first few chapters.

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Conclusion

Sended sounds like a correct word because it features the suffix ‘-ed.’ However, grammar rules in English differ significantly; they do not apply to all words. For instance, while the past tense for talk is talked, send can never be sended. Just like the past tense of spend is spent and not spended.

We understand that this may be confusing, but reading this article to understand equips you with the right information. Again, with practice, you should get used to writing sent as the correct word and the perfect past tense of send. We hope that this article was helpful.