appointed

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of appoint.

   The board appointed a new director after a long search.

   He was appointed ambassador to France in 1995.

   Note

   The participle carries every meaning the verb appoint has, not just one. Naming someone to a post is the most common, as in W. B. Maxwell's The Mirror and the Lamp (1918), with its "newly appointed suffragan-bishop." The same form also describes a time or place fixed by authority or agreement, and a room or place fully furnished and fitted out. Before a noun it readily takes an adverb such as newly.

   They met at the appointed hour outside the station.

   The house was handsomely appointed, with new furniture in every room.

2. 2
   adjective

   Given to a person through appointment by an authority rather than through a public election.

   Several appointed officials lost their posts when the new administration took over.

   The position is appointed rather than elected, so the public has no direct say in who fills it.

   Note

   An adjective for offices and the people who hold them, defined by its opposite: elected. In the United States, the Secretary of State is a familiar case, a post filled by an authority rather than by voters. It is not comparable, so a position is either appointed or it is not; nothing is "more appointed." It is the participle of appoint settled into an adjective.

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