suspected

3.7

Thought likely to be true but not yet proven

adjective
/səˈspɛktɪd/

: sospechoso

The police had a suspected thief in custody who had been seen near the crime scene.

And eventually get into this lad who is suspected of killing Norman Clark.

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Examples

Sparrows were suspected of eating too much grain and were killed off.
They report that the break in is suspected to be targeted.

Megyn Kelly
Being suspected takes the place of actually being guilty.

Gregory B. Sadler - That Philosophy Guy
Immunocompromised age aids patients have also been suspected to potentially incubate more variants.
Septimius, Pompey's wife, was worried about this lack of pomp and suspected something was not right.
She felt uneasy because her friend had become a suspected accomplice in the investigation.
After the financial audit, several suspected discrepancies were reported to the authorities.

Antonyms

innocent

∞ 2.2

Not guilty of a crime or wrongdoing

unsuspected

2 5.3

Not known or expected to be there

proven

1 3.2

Shown by facts to be true and to work well

How Suspected

accused

2 3.6

suspected

3.7

innocent

∞ 2.2

Surface Forms

suspected positive

Morphology

suspected = suspect (transparent) = suspect + ed

The adjective is a regular past-participial/adjectival use of the verb 'suspect' formed with the productive suffix '-ed', so the meaning is directly derived.

Etymology

Suspected comes from Latin parts sus- meaning 'from below' and spec meaning 'to look', the same spec you find in inspect. It gives the picture of quietly looking at someone and beginning to think they may have done something wrong, so suspected means 'thought likely to have done something wrong'.