saddled

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense and past participle of saddle.

   The new owners were saddled with millions in debt from the old company.

   The ranch hands saddled up at dawn and headed out to round up the cattle.

   Note

   One spelling serves as both the simple past (she saddled the mare) and the past participle (the mare was saddled by noon). In the burden meaning, with comes before the load: saddled with debt, saddled with the blame. North American usage also lets the rider be the subject, with no animal named, meaning to climb into the saddle: the hands saddled up at dawn.

2. 2
   adjective

   Of a horse or other animal, wearing a saddle on its back.

   A saddled camel knelt in the sand beside the tent.

   We found the horse standing saddled but riderless at the edge of the woods.

   Oppositeunsaddled

   Note

   The adjective describes an animal's state rather than an action, and it does not grade: a horse is saddled or it is not. With can follow it to name the saddle itself, as when T. E. Lawrence writes of a riding camel "saddled with his own saddle": a long way from the burden sense of the verb.

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