trailed
- 1Simple past tense and past participle of trail.
The hikers trailed mud across the kitchen floor.
A faint scent of smoke trailed through the open window.
Note
One regular -ed spelling serves as both past tense and participle, so the words around it show which one you have. When trail takes an object (following someone, dragging something behind, previewing a report), the participle can turn passive: the suspect was trailed by police, and the findings were trailed in the press. The intransitive uses, a vine climbing or a hem sweeping behind, never go passive and pair only with have.
The suspect was trailed by two detectives for a week.
By autumn the ivy had trailed over the garden wall.
trailed is a form of trail
trail, verb: To follow closely behind someone or something, often quietly keeping track of where they go. Full entry
- Spelling
- trail → trailed: add -ed
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /d/.
Use it in a sentence
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