What does communicated mean?
Communicated is the past tense and past participle of the verb communicate, one of the most essential verbs in human interaction. At its core it means having conveyed information, ideas, or feelings from one mind to another, whether through speech, writing, gesture, art, or technology. The word carries no inherent judgment: a message can be communicated clearly or poorly, formally or casually, but the act itself is simply the bridging of understanding. Beyond its dominant informational sense, communicated also appears in more specialized contexts: diseases are said to have been communicated when they pass between people, and in older architectural usage, adjoining rooms were described as communicating when connected by a doorway. The word derives from the Latin communicare, meaning 'to share' or 'to make common', a root it shares with community and communion — a fitting heritage, since communication is fundamentally about creating common ground. Its versatility makes it indispensable in business, science, medicine, and daily life alike.
verb (past tense and past participle of 'communicate')Past tense and past participle of communicate: to have shared or exchanged information, news, or ideas with another person, or to have transmitted a message, feeling, or disease.
- To have conveyed information or ideas to someone through speech, writing, or other means.
- To have succeeded in making one's thoughts or feelings understood.
- (Of a disease) To have been transmitted from one person or thing to another.
- (Of two rooms or spaces) To have been connected by a door or passage.
"She communicated her concerns clearly during the meeting."
"The manager communicated the new policy to all staff via email."
"In his final years, the stroke survivor communicated only through gestures and eye movements."
From Latin communicare, 'to make common' — every time you speak, you're literally making something shared property between minds.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of communicated
Communicated comes ultimately from the Latin verb communicare, meaning 'to share, impart, or make common', itself derived from communis ('common, shared'). English adopted the verb in the late Middle Ages, initially carrying senses of sharing or partaking, before developing its modern emphasis on transmitting information. The same Latin root gives us community, communion, and communal, all preserving the idea of shared participation.
Related word forms
How communicated is actually used
'Communicated' is neutral in register and works in both formal and informal contexts. In medical and public-health writing, it frequently appears in the sense of disease transmission ('the infection communicated readily'), though this sense is less common in everyday speech than the information-sharing sense.