daggered

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense and past participle of dagger.

   The conspirators daggered the tyrant as he left the banquet hall.

   By the time the watch arrived, the messenger had been daggered and left in the alley.

   Note

   One regular spelling does both jobs: the simple past (they daggered the guard at dawn) and the past participle after have or be (the guard had been daggered). It belongs as well to the Jamaican verb for the dance called daggering, so the surrounding words decide whether someone was stabbed or simply danced.

2. 2
   adjective

   Wearing or carrying a dagger.

   Two daggered bodyguards followed the prince through the crowded market.

   In the portrait, a daggered nobleman stands beside his horse with one glove in his hand.

   Note

   Here -ed means "having", as it does in bearded or booted: a daggered man carries a dagger, while the verb's past form says someone was stabbed with one. The adjective stands before its noun, as in a daggered assassin or a daggered thief, and it has no comparative, since a person is either daggered or not.

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