Lost

Part of speech: adjective, verb

Pronunciation: /lɒst/

Definitions

1. Unable to determine one's direction or location; no longer in one's possession or control; having failed to win or succeed
2. Confused about the correct path or position; something that has been misplaced or taken away; experiencing failure or defeat
3. Not knowing where to go or how to proceed; something that is no longer owned or kept; having been overcome or deprived of success

Etymology: The past tense and past participle of "lose" arrived in English through a rather tidy piece of grammar. Old English had "losode" as its preterite and "losod" and "ġelosod" as its participles, built from the verb "lose" with the regular past-tense ending "-t" (or "-ed" in its older form). Over the Middle English period these forms were worn down to "loste" and "lost," and the spelling shifted with them, so the modern adjective is simply the old past participle that stopped behaving like a verb. That shift is what gives the adjective its current sense. Once "lost" described a thing that had been mislaid or had perished, and from there it came to mean a person who has strayed from the way, which is the sense of "not knowing direction" that we use today. The same participle also carries the older idea of being destroyed or ruined, so the everyday adjective is a direct descendant of a verb meaning to be deprived of something.

Synonyms: misplaced, forfeited, missing, gone, vanished

Antonyms: found, located, retrieved, secured, saved