reserved

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈzɝvd/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈzɜːvd/
• Hyphenation: re‧served

reserved

1. simple past and past participle of reserve

reserved (comparative more reserved, superlative most reserved)

1. (comparable) Slow to reveal emotion or opinions.

   Synonyms: remote, standoffish; see also Thesaurus:aloof, Thesaurus:taciturn

   He was a quiet, reserved person.

   • 1942 July-August, Chas. S. Lake, “Some C.M.Es. I Have Known: II—C. J. Bowen Cooke”, in Railway Magazine, page 223:

     Before I met Mr. Bowen Cooke I had been given to understand that he was of a reserved nature, and on occasion could be a "bit of a martinet"; [...].

2. (not comparable) Set aside for a particular person or purpose; spoken for.

   Synonyms: allocated, assigned, dedicated

   I'm sorry, sir, but these are reserved seats.

   • 1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, When the World Screamed‎:

     A special reserved enclosure with sandbags and a corrugated iron roof was set aside for three members of the Royal Family.

   • 2024 July 24, Christian Wolmar, “Overcrowded trains... and inconvenience for passengers”, in RAIL, number 1014, page 44:

     The LNER website, for example, tries to stop people buying off-peak tickets for services that the company reckons are full, even though there is nothing to prevent people without a seat reservation from getting on a particular service. Indeed, I did so recently on the Inverness midday train, which is a superb service to York, and inevitably there were plenty of reserved seats where the passengers had not turned up.

• shy

• deserver, reversed