What does ingested mean?
Ingested is the past tense and past participle of ingest, meaning taken into the body or received into a system. In its most literal sense, it describes consuming food or drink, although the act of ingestion does not necessarily imply complete digestion. It is also widely used in technical and administrative contexts to describe what a person, organism, or machine takes in: a system may ingest records, a material may be ingested by a laboratory instrument, or information may be ingested into an organization. The word has a formal, scientific tone and can suggest absorption or incorporation rather than ordinary eating. Its related noun, ingestion, is especially common in discussions of nutrition, biology, data processing, and risk assessment.
To take into the body, especially as food; to absorb or assimilate. Also used for the intake of material, information, or data into an organism or system.
"The bacteria ingested organic matter from the soil."
Usually encountered as the past tense and past participle of ingest; common in formal, scientific, and technical writing.
Having been taken into the body or received into a system.
"The researchers measured the concentration of the ingested compound in the blood."
This participial adjective is especially common in scientific and technical contexts.
Ingested means taken in, not necessarily fully digested: the process describes entry into the body or a system, while digestion is what happens afterward.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does ingested come from?
The word comes from Latin ingestus, the past participle of ingerere, meaning to carry or bring in. That verb combined the prefix in- with gerere, meaning to carry or bear, and was borrowed into English in the 17th century in the sense of taking food into the body. The Latin gerere also underlies words such as gesture and contributes to the meaning of digest through the related Latin gerere.
Related word forms
How ingested is actually used
This is the past tense and past participle of ingest. It is common in scientific, technical, and formal contexts, especially when describing the intake of food, substances, data, or other material.