Word.ws English Dictionary

owed

UK/əʊd//oʊd/

owed is the simple past and past participle of owe.

Meaning of owe

Verb

owe (third-person singular simple present owes, present participle owing, simple past owed or (archaic) ought, past participle owed or (archaic) ought or (archaic) own)

  1. (ditransitive) To be under an obligation to give something back to someone or to perform some action for someone.
    • We owe it to our children to make our nation a better place to live in the future.
  2. (intransitive) To have debt; to be in debt.
  3. (transitive) To have as a cause; used with to.
    • The record owes its success to the outstanding guitar solos.

Adjective

owed (comparative more owed, superlative most owed)

  1. That owes.
    Synonyms:
    due

Synonyms of owed

Forms of owed

comparativemore owed
superlativemost owed

Words formed from owed

Phrases with owed

Words that rhyme with owed

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about owed

What does owed mean?
Owed means that owes.
What is owed the simple past and past participle of?
Owed is the simple past and past participle of owe.
What part of speech is owed?
Owed is an adjective.
How do you pronounce owed?
Owed is pronounced /oʊd/ (US).

Words near owed in the dictionary

  1. OWDs
  2. owe
  3. owe it to oneself
  4. owe out
  5. owe someone one
  6. owed
  7. owed it to oneself
  8. owed out
  9. owedness
  10. owedst
  11. Oweekano

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: owed (page history and authors); owe (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-owed.ogg.

Cite this entry: “owed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/owed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.