What does scanned mean?
Scanned is the past tense and past participle of scan and also functions as an adjective. Its most familiar modern use describes converting printed documents, photographs, or images into digital form. In that sense, a “scanned copy” is an electronic representation produced by a scanner. Scanned can also describe directing the eyes, a light beam, or another device across a person, place, or object in search of information or a particular feature. As an adjective, it may indicate that something has undergone such examination or digitization. The word is common in both formal and informal settings and is used similarly in British and American English. Its history links it with the Latin scandere, “to climb,” while the development of optical and digital scanning greatly expanded its range of modern meanings.
To examine or search through something systematically, particularly by moving the eyes or a beam over it, or to convert a document or image into a digital form.
"Technicians scanned the painting to create a high-resolution record of its surface."
The digital-imaging sense is now especially common, but the verb continues to describe careful visual searches of people, places, images, and texts.
Converted into a digital image by means of a scanner, or having been subjected to a systematic visual examination.
"Please upload the scanned document rather than a photograph of the original."
As an adjective, scanned most often refers to documents, images, or copies that have been digitized.
Scan descends from the Latin scandere, meaning “to climb”—an unexpectedly physical beginning for a word now associated with screens, beams, and documents.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does scanned come from?
Scanned is the regular past tense and past participle of scan. Scan entered English in the early 17th century from Latin scandere, “to climb,” through the related idea of going over verse or text carefully. Its modern technical senses developed as scanning came to mean both systematic examination and the capture of images.
Related word forms
How scanned is actually used
The word is neutral in technical and document contexts. When describing a person’s attention, however, “scanned” may suggest a brief or systematic visual inspection. British and American usage is essentially the same.
Easily confused with scanned
Canned means preserved in a container or recorded for later use, whereas scanned means examined, searched through, or converted into a digital image.