Bidded

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To have issued a call or request, often involving negotiation
2. Expressed an offer to buy or do something in a competitive situation in the past
3. Previously stated a price or proposal especially in auctions or contracts

Etymology: "Bidded" is the regular past form of "bid," but the verb itself is a tangle of two Old English words that merged. One, "biddan," meant "to ask" or "demand," and is related to the modern German "bitten" and Dutch "bidden," which still carry senses of asking and praying. The other, "bēodan," meant "to offer" or "announce," and is related to German "bieten" and Dutch "bieden," which mean to offer a price. Over centuries the two verbs were conflated, so the auction sense of offering a price drew on both the asking and the offering ideas. The most surprising twist is that the English verb once leaned heavily toward requesting rather than offering. A bid was a petition or command before it became a sum put forward at a sale. Because the two source verbs came together in English, the modern meaning is a blend rather than the descendant of a single ancestor.

Synonyms: offered, proposed