returned

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of return.

   The defective phone was returned to the manufacturer for a refund.

   He returned the borrowed tools the following week.

   Note

   One spelling does the work of two forms, and the verb behind it runs in two directions. Return can mean coming back yourself or putting something back, so the participle appears in active perfects (she has returned home) and in passives (the tools were returned). Only the putting-back meaning goes passive: a traveler has returned, but a book is returned.

2. 2
   adjective

   Having come back to a place or position after an absence.

   The returned expedition members were examined by doctors on arrival.

   A returned letter lay unopened on the hallway table.

3. 3
   adjective

   Turned or bent back on itself at an angle, as a surface or edge that changes direction.

   The architect drew a returned profile where the cornice met the corner.

   Each returned flange added rigidity to the sheet-metal panel.

4. 4
   adjectiveAustraliaCanadaNew ZealandUS

   Home again after being discharged from military service.

   Counselors offered support to returned servicemen adjusting to civilian life.

   The returned soldier struggled to find steady work after the war.

   Note

   A word with a regional home in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where returned men or a returned soldier means veterans back in civilian life. Pearl Gibbs, in a 1941 radio broadcast, speaks of returned men in an argument about who is entitled to the old-age pension. It stands before its noun, and men and soldiers are its natural partners.

5. 5
   adjective

   Yielded as profit or income from an investment.

   The returned dividends were reinvested into the same fund.

   Analysts compared the returned earnings across several portfolios.

   Note

   Finance takes this sense from the noun return, the yield an investment produces. A returned sum is money the investment has earned, not money sent back. That double reading is the trap, because returned funds can just as easily mean a refund in the "come back" sense. In financial writing, the surrounding words settle it: dividends, earnings, or a yield over a period point to profit.

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