doubted

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of doubt.

   The jury doubted the witness's account of that night.

   Critics had long doubted the company's lofty promises.

   Note

   The same regular form serves as past tense and as past participle, so only the surrounding words tell them apart. In she doubted it, it is the past tense. In she had doubted it or it was doubted, it is the participle. The verb works with an object or without one (he doubted the story; he never doubted), and the passive is where it shades into the adjective meaning untrusted.

2. 2
   adjective

   Regarded as doubtful or untrustworthy, and therefore treated as uncertain.

   The doubted hypothesis gained support after further research.

   A doubted alibi rarely holds up under cross-examination.

   Similardisputed, suspect, questionable

   Oppositeaccepted, trusted, undisputed

   Note

   The participle has become a true adjective here: it takes more, most and even very. John Barbour's Life and Acts of Robert Bruce (1758) speaks of "the most doubted man" then living in Carrick. There the older sense of doubt as dread may mean feared rather than mistrusted. Satya Prakash Jain's Studies in Finance and Economic Development (1969) shows the impersonal modern pattern: "it is very doubted as to whether."

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