branched

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of branch.

   The road branched off toward the coast just past the bridge.

   Her research has branched into several unrelated fields over the years.

   Note

   Most often the past of an intransitive verb, as when a road branched off or research branched into new fields. In the perfect it takes have. A passive (was branched) only works with the transitive meanings: a tree stripped of its limbs, or, colloquially, a union member disciplined at a branch meeting. Programmers use it too, as in the code branched to an error handler.

2. 2
   adjective

   Having branches, or having a particular kind of branching structure.

   Like a river that splits into many smaller streams as it nears the sea.

   The plant produced tall, branched stems covered in small white flowers.

   A branched network of tunnels ran beneath the old city.

   Similarforked

   Oppositeunbranched

   Note

   Built from the noun branch plus -ed, the suffix behind bearded and winged, it describes what something has rather than something that happened to it. A branched stem grew that way, and nobody branched it. That is the quickest way to tell it from the past-tense verb, which reports an action: the road branched off toward the coast.

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