ironed

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past tense and past participle of iron.

   The tailor ironed each seam flat before stitching the panels together.

   By the time the guests arrived, she had ironed every tablecloth.

   Note

   One spelling does both jobs: she ironed the shirts, and she has ironed them. Behind it stand several verbs. One means pressing cloth, either with an object or as a plain activity (he ironed all morning). Others mean furnishing with iron and, archaically, shackling. Each participle can stand before a noun as an adjective, which is how the laundry sense and the shackled sense arise.

2. 2
   adjective

   Pressed or smoothed with a hot iron to remove wrinkles and creases.

   He hung the ironed shirts carefully in the closet.

   A neatly ironed handkerchief sat folded in his breast pocket.

   Similarpressed

   Oppositecreased, wrinkled, crumpled, rumpled

3. 3
   adjective

   Curled or straightened with a heated styling tool such as a curling iron or flat iron.

   She showed up with sleek, ironed hair for the photo shoot.

   The stylist's ironed ringlets held their shape all evening.

   Similarcurled, styled

   Note

   Here one word covers opposite results: hair can be ironed into ringlets or ironed sleek and flat, and only the context says which. The name follows the tool rather than the effect. It also stretches beyond true curling and straightening irons to electric straighteners. When the result matters, curled or straightened says it more clearly.

4. 4
   adjective

   Bound or restrained with iron chains or shackles.

   The mutineers were ironed and confined below deck for the voyage home.

   Ironed at the wrists and ankles, the prisoner could barely shuffle forward.

   Similarshackled, chained, fettered, bound

   Oppositeunshackled, unchained, free, unbound

   Note

   The shackling sense keeps an archaic verb alive. Few people now say a guard irons a prisoner, but the participle survives before a noun, as in Marcus Clarke's For the Term of His Natural Life (1874): "the ironed convict, dragging his tree trunk." Because of that archaic verb, the word reads as historical. In present-day prose, shackled or in irons is the safer choice.

5. 5
   adjective

   Fitted with iron, or strengthened by iron; shod with iron.

   The fortress gate, ironed and studded, withstood the battering ram.

   The guide's staff was ironed at the point so it could bite into the ice.

   Similarreinforced, shod, plated, banded

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