Influenced

Influenced is the past tense and past participle of the verb influence, meaning to affect the character, development, or behavior of someone or something. It is used to describe outcomes that result from external factors, ideas, people, or circumstances.

In usage, influenced can indicate that an action or decision was shaped by particular inputs. For example, “Her opinions were influenced by her travels” shows a received effect, while “The policy was influenced by new data” points to the data as a contributing factor. In active voice, it can also describe how someone affects others, as in “She influenced the group’s direction.”

As an adjective, influenced describes something that has been affected by external factors, often followed by “by.” For example, “a painting influenced by impressionism” or “her singing style influenced by jazz.” In this sense, it shares a semantic field with terms such as affected and shaped, but it emphasizes external input rather than intrinsic quality alone.

Etymology traces influenced to the noun influence, which comes from Latin influentia via Old French influence; English adopted the noun in the medieval period and formed the verb from it, with influenced serving as the past tense and past participle. The word is commonly paired with phrases like “influenced by,” “influenced decisions,” or “influential person,” and it remains a neutral descriptor of causation rather than a value judgment.