sent
1 Americanverb
noun
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of sent
First recorded in 1925–30; from Estonian senti (compare Finnish sentti ), from Latin centum “hundred”; see centum 1
Explanation
Something that's sent has been delivered or mailed, like a sent package of cookies that you dropped off earlier at the post office. The adjective sent can be used to describe things that are on their way to a certain destination. You might find a message inside a bottle on the beach, which you read again after your sent reply is bobbing on the waves in its own bottle. Sent is also the past participle of the verb send, from the Old English root sendan, "send forth, throw, or impel."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Appeared in the October 6, 2025, print edition as 'National Guard Sent to Oregon'.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 5, 2025
Capaldi, 28, who has Tourette's Syndrome, shot to fame in 2019 with debut album Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent, while follow-up Broken by Desire to Be Heavenly Sent also topped the charts in 2023.
From BBC • May 3, 2025
Sent to an animal shelter with a group of other Shiba Inu dogs after her breeder went out of business, she was adopted in 2008 by Ms. Sato, a kindergarten teacher.
From New York Times • May 24, 2024
In historian Geoffrey Robertson’s book, “The Tyrannicide Brief: The Story of the Man Who Sent Charles I to the Scaffold,” the author recounted how a judge told the jury to reconsider their not-guilty verdict.
From Salon • Apr. 30, 2024
Sent together, the twin and the niwt, chained together always in life as in prelife.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
