contacted

Contacted is the past tense and past participle of the verb contact. In common usage it refers to the act of establishing communication with someone or an organization, typically by phone, email, or another message service. It can also describe a physical sense of touch, as in two objects coming into contact or making electrical contact.

The noun contact traces back to Latin contactus, via Old French contact. The verb sense emerged in English as the concept of communication expanded with modern methods of correspondence and later with telecommunications in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, contacted is used across many registers, from everyday conversation to formal writing, and it can be found in both personal and professional contexts.

Usage notes and examples: active voice examples include “We contacted the client this morning” and “She contacted support for an issue.” passive constructions such as “We were contacted by the investigator” are common in reports and summaries. In technical contexts, contacted can describe physical interaction, as in “the terminals contacted the circuit,” though such usage is more often expressed with announce or connect depending on the domain. The past participle can appear in participial phrases in formal writing, and in some legal or investigative texts you may see “the contacted parties” or similar forms.

See also: contact, contacting, contact information, contact tracing.