Lisa
winged vs wingèd Sometimes in poetry you encounter adjectives like 'winged' or 'forged' with an acute accent, for example, in this poem by Addrew Marvell: But at my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near... I see that 'winged' is pronounced in two syllables in this case, and that is what the acute accent stands for. Now my question is, how natural does this sound to you as native English speakers? Is that just slightly poetic, or super archaic or high-flown? Would you occasionally pronounce 'winged' as a two-syllable word in normal speech?
Sep 1, 2014 3:25 PM
Answers · 5
1
No, never. You would only come across this pronunciation in pre-20th century poetry. Several hundred years ago, it was an alternative form. Nowadays the only past forms which pronounce the 'ed' as a separate syllable are the ones where you have no choice ie for those verbs which end in 't' ot 'd', such as knitted or kidded. Incidentally, there are one or two 'relic' forms still around in modern English. One such word is the adjective 'crooked', which is pronounced as two syllables. An interesting question, though.
September 1, 2014
We don't say "wing-ed" at all in everyday English (at least in the US). It is just for reciting poetry to enunciate a trochaic meter.
September 1, 2014
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