promised

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of promise.

   The mayor promised lower taxes throughout her campaign.

   The funds had been promised to the school months earlier.

   Note

   Past tense and participle share one spelling, and the participle does double duty in passives. Because promise can take two objects (promise someone something), either object can become the subject: lower taxes were promised to voters, or voters were promised lower taxes. Keep the passive apart from the "betrothed" meaning: she was promised a reward is the verb, while she is promised to the Baron describes a standing bond.

2. 2
   adjective

   Set to come about as the fulfillment of a pledge or prophecy made earlier.

   The promised inheritance came to her on her twenty-first birthday.

   After generations of waiting, the people entered their promised homeland.

   Similarguaranteed

   Note

   A pledge stands behind this sense, not just a forecast. It reaches from scripture, with the promised seed and the promised savior, to the law of contracts, where an executor is legally bound to deliver the promised $5,000. That obligation is how to tell it from the "expected" meaning: a promised recovery is merely forecast, but a promised sum is owed.

3. 3
   adjective

   Bound by a prior agreement to a future commitment, such as a marriage or a chosen calling.

   Once promised to the church, a young man rarely returned to secular life.

   The promised heir of one kingdom was raised to wed the princess of another.

   Similarbetrothed, engaged, bound, committed

   Note

   Here the word describes a person, and it usually follows be with to: I am promised to the Baron, I am promised to another. The bond can be to a future spouse or to an institution. In Marion Zimmer Bradley's Two To Conquer a woman is promised to Neskaya Tower. In Barbara Cartland's Love by Moonlight, as in Bradley, the phrase serves as a polite refusal spoken to an admirer mid-dance.

   I cannot accept your offer, sir; I am promised to another.

   She had been promised to the convent since childhood.

4. 4
   adjective

   Predicted or expected; spoken of beforehand as something sure to arrive.

   Like a blockbuster everyone anticipates after months of trailers.

   Voters grew restless waiting for the promised reforms.

   The promised cold front finally swept across the plains overnight.

   Similarexpected, anticipated

   Oppositeunexpected, unforeseen

   Note

   Usually found right before its noun, in the frame "the promised X": the promised weather change, the promised economic recovery. The phrase often carries doubt, turning up in sentences about what has not arrived: no sign of the promised recovery, if the promised change does not take place. It does not grade, so nothing is more promised than something else. Unlike the "pledged and owed" meaning, nobody need be bound to deliver it.

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