Written means set down on paper rather than said aloud. A written agreement, in written form, the written word.
In law the difference matters: some contracts must be written to be enforceable at all, and get it in writing is advice as old as the alphabet. It is the past participle of write, and the double t and single e catch people out.
1adjectivewrittenSet down on paper rather than said aloud.
“The landlord gave us a written agreement, so there could be no argument later.”
written is a form.
The past participle of write, from Old English writan, which first meant to scratch or carve.
Proto-Indo-European
*wrey- — to rip, tear
Proto-Germanic
*wrītaną — to carve, write
Proto-West Germanic
*wrītan
Old English
wrītan
Middle English
writen
English
write
English, today
written
Morphologically write + en. write comes from Middle English writen, from Old English wrītan, from Proto-West Germanic wrītan, from Proto-Germanic wrītaną (“to carve, write”), from Proto-Indo-European wrey- (“to rip, tear”). Cognate with West Frisian write (“to wear by rubbing, rip, tear”), Dutch wrijten (“to argue, quarrel”), Middle Low German wrîten (“to scratch, draw, write”) (> Low German wrieten, rieten (“to tear, split”)), German reißen (“to tear, rip”), Norwegian rita (“to rough-sketch, carve, write”), Swedish rita (“to draw, design, delineate, model”), Icelandic rita (“to inscribe, sketch, write”), German ritzen (“to carve, scratch”), Proto-Slavic ryti (“to carve, engrave, dig”), Polish ryć (“to engrave, dig”), Czech rýt (“to engrave, dig”). See also rit and rat.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA