blessed
The blessed blessed the bread before the meal.
The first 'blessed' is the adjective, pronounced with a full second syllable, /ˈblɛsɪd/ — used here as a plural noun for those who stand in a state of grace. The second is the plain past tense of the verb 'to bless', pronounced /blɛst/, one syllable, the -ed collapsed to a bare /t/. Set flush against each other, the pair makes the reader perform the shift out loud: the same six letters name first a condition and then the act that produces it, so the sentence quietly argues that the blessed are the ones who bless.
Meanings
Consecrated, holy, or standing in divine favour; as a plural noun, 'the blessed' are those held to have received grace.
- Blessed are the peacemakers.
- She kept the blessed candle burning through the night.
Conferred a blessing on; consecrated something or invoked favour upon it.
- The abbot blessed the fields at first light.
- He blessed his luck and said nothing more.
Word origin
Old English 'blētsian' (earlier 'blōdsian') meant to consecrate — by marking with blood. It descends from Proto-Germanic *blōdisōn, 'to hallow with blood', from *blōtham, the ancestor of 'blood', and originally described the sprinkling of a pagan altar. When English Bibles needed a word for Latin 'benedicere' and Greek 'eulogein', both of which literally mean 'to speak well of', they reached for this blood-word, and its sense was overwritten — helped along by its accidental resemblance to Old English 'blīths', the root of 'bliss'.
Fun fact
'Blessed' is one of the very few English words for which printers invented a diacritic: the grave accent in 'blessèd', used in hymnals and printed verse to tell the singer to give the -ed its own syllable and hold the meter. Poets who wanted the opposite — the clipped one-syllable reading — spelled it 'blest' outright. Two spellings and an accent mark, all of them workarounds for a heteronym English never resolved.