Irregular Verbs

The English language has a large number of irregular verbs, approaching 200 in normal use—and significantly more if prefixed forms are counted. In most cases, the irregularity concerns the past tense (also called preterite or the past participle.

The other inflected parts of the verb—the third person singular present indicative in -[e]s, and the present participle and gerund form in -ing—are formed regularly in most cases. There are a few exceptions: the verb be has irregular forms throughout the present tense; the verbs have, do, go and say have irregular -[e]s forms; and certain defective verbs (such as the modal auxiliaries) lack most inflection.

The irregular verbs include many of the most common verbs: the dozen most frequently used English verbs are all irregular. New verbs (including loans from other languages, and nouns employed as verbs) usually follow the regular inflection, unless they are compound formations from an existing irregular verb (such as housesit, from sit).

Irregular verbs in Modern English typically derive from verbs that followed more regular patterns at a previous stage in the history of the language. In particular, many such verbs derive from Germanic strong verbs, which make many of their inflected forms through vowel gradation, as can be observed in Modern English patterns such as sing–sang–sung. The regular verbs, on the other hand, with their preterites and past participles ending in -ed, follow the weak conjugation, which originally involved adding a dental consonant (-t or -d). Nonetheless, there are also many irregular verbs that follow or partially follow the weak conjugation.

For information on the conjugation of regular verbs in English, as well as other points concerning verb usage, see verbs.

Strong Verbs

A large number of the irregular verbs derive from Germanic strong verbs, which display the vowel shift called ablaut, and do not add an ending such as -ed or -t for the past forms. These sometimes retain past participles with the ending -[e]n, as in give–gave–given and ride–rode–ridden, but in other cases this ending has been dropped, as in come–came–come and sing–sang–sung. This verb group was inherited from the parent Proto-Germanic language, and before that from the Proto-Indo-European language. It was originally a system of regular verbs, and in modern German the system remains more or less regular; however in Modern English relatively few verbs continue to follow such a pattern, and they are classed as irregular.

Verbs that retain a strong-type inflection in modern English and add -[e]n in the past participle include bear, beat, beget, bite, blow, break, choose, cleave, draw, drive, eat, fall, fly, forbid, forget, forsake, freeze, give, grow, know, lie, ride, rise, see, shake, shear, slay, smite, speak, steal, stride, strive, swear, take, tear, throw, tread, wake, weave, and write.

Those that do not add -[e]n in the usual past participle include become, begin, bind, burst, cling, come, drink, fight, find, fling, get (but with past participle gotten in American English), grind, hang, hold, let, ring, run, seek, shed, shine, shit, shoot, shrink, sing, sink, sit, slide, sling, slink, slit, spin, spring, stand, sting, stink, strike, swim, swing, win, wind and wring.

The verbs sow and swell are now usually regular in the past tense, but retain the strong-type past participles sown and swollen. Other verbs retain participles in -n for certain adjectival uses, such as drunken and sunken. The verb crow is now regular in the past participle, but the strong past tense crew is sometimes used.

Some originally weak verbs have taken on strong-type forms by analogy with strong verbs. These include dig, dive (when dove is used as the past tense), hide, mow, prove (when proven is used as the past participle), saw (past participle sawn), sew (past participle sewn), show (past participle shown), spit, stick, strew, string, and wear (analogy with bear).

Weak Verbs

Some other irregular verbs derive from Germanic weak verbs, forming past tenses and participles with a -d or -t ending (or from originally strong verbs that have switched to the weak pattern). The weak conjugation is also the origin of the regular verbs in -ed; however various historical sound changes (and sometimes spelling changes) have led to certain types of irregularity in some verbs. The main processes are as follows (some verbs have been subject to more than one of these).

Some weak verbs with long vowels in their present tense stems (such as keep) took a short vowel in the past tense and past participle (kept).
In some weak verbs ending in a final -t or -d, this final consonant coalesced (contracted) with the weak past ending to leave a single -t or -d in the past forms.
Some verbs ending in l or n had their past ending irregularly devoiced to -t, and in a few verbs ending with a v or z sound (leave, lose), both that sound and the past ending were devoiced. (The regular ending -ed is also devoiced after voiceless consonants in regular verbs, as described under, but this is not now shown in the spelling – for example, the -ed in blessed and whipped is pronounced as a t, and these words were formerly written blest and whipt. The spelling -t following a voiceless consonant is retained for verbs that display an irregularity, as in kept and cost.)
Some weak verbs continue the vowel shift called Rückumlaut ("reverse umlaut"); those with -gh- in the spelling were also affected by the Germanic spirant law.
A few weak verbs have undergone additional contractions or vowel shortenings in their past or present tense forms.
A few verbs are regular in their spoken forms, but have irregular spelling.

The irregular weak verbs (being in normal use) can consequently be grouped as follows:

For weak verbs that have adopted strong-type past tense or past participle forms, see the section above on strong verbs.

More information on the development of some of the listed verbs can be found at List of irregular verbs.

Verbs with vowel shortening: creep, flee, hear, keep, leap, shoe (when shod is used), sleep, sweep and weep. (Of these, creep, flee, leap, sleep and weep derive from verbs that were originally strong.)
Verbs with vowel shortening and devoicing of the ending: deal, dream, feel, kneel, lean, leave, lose (originally strong) and mean. Some of the verbs in this and in the preceding group have alternative regular forms, such as dreamed and leaped.
Verbs with coalescence of consonants: bet, bid, cast, cost, cut, fit, hit, hurt, knit, put, quit, rid, set, shed, shut, split, spread, thrust, wed and wet. Some of these verbs have alternative regular forms, such as wedded and wetted. (The verb hoist behaves similarly to verbs in this group, but this was originally itself a past form of the now obsolete verb hoise; similarly clad was originally – and sometimes still is – a past form of clothe.)
Verbs with coalescence of consonants and devoicing of the ending: bend, build, lend, rend, send, spend.
Verbs with coalescence of consonants and vowel shortening: bleed, breed, feed, lead, light, meet, read (past tense and past participle also spelt read, but pronounced with a short vowel), and speed.
Verbs with devoicing of the ending and no other irregularity: burn, dwell, learn, smell, spell, spill and spoil. Most of these have regular -ed forms as alternatives.
Verbs continuing the Rückumlaut pattern: bring–brought, buy–bought, seek–sought, sell–sold, teach–taught, tell–told, and think–thought. The borrowed verb catch (caught) has also fallen into this pattern as a result of analogy.
Verbs with additional contractions and shortenings: have–has–had, make–made, say–says–said (where says and said are pronounced with a short vowel ). (The verb do has a similar vowel shortening in does and done)
Verbs irregular only in spelling: lay–laid, pay–paid (although in the meaning "let out", of a rope etc., pay may have the regular spelling payed).

Anomalous Cases

The following verbs do not fit exactly into any of the above categories:

The modal verbs, which are defective verbs – they have only a present indicative form and (in some cases) a preterite, lacking nonfinite forms (infinitives, participles, gerunds), imperatives, and subjunctives (although some uses of the preterites are sometimes identified as subjunctives). Moreover, they do not add -s in the third person singular – this is because they derive either from preterites, or from Germanic preterite-present verbs, which were conjugated using the (strong-type) preterite form with present tense meaning. (Additional "true" preterites with past tense meaning were formed with the addition of dentals in the manner of the weak verbs.) The chief verbs of this class are can–could, may–might, shall–should, will–would, and must and ought (These last two have no preterites. They were originally preterites themselves). There are also dare and need, which follow the same pattern (no -s) in some contexts: "Dare he jump? She needn't worry" (dare derives from a preterite-present verb, but need is from an Old English regular verb).
Two verbs (be and go) that contain suppletive forms, i.e. one or more of their parts came from an entirely different root. With go this applies to the past tense went, which is originally from the verb wend. With be it applies to a number of different forms. Derived from be is the defective verb beware, which does not inflect in normal use and which appears only in those forms in which the plain form of be would be used, namely the infinitive, the imperative, and the subjunctive.
The verb do, which has the reduplicated form did for its past tense (an irregularity that can be traced back to Proto-Germanic). Its past participle done can be compared to typical strong participles in -[e]n; however both this and the third person present tense does feature a short vowel in modern pronunciation.

Verbs With Irregular Present Tenses

Apart from the modal verbs, which are irregular in that they do not take an -s in the third person, the only verbs with irregular present tense forms are be, do, have and say (and prefixed forms of these, such as undo and gainsay, which conjugate in the same way as the basic forms).

The verb be has multiple irregular forms. In the present indicative it has am in the first person singular, is in the third person singular, and are in the plural and second person singular. (Its present subjunctive is be, as in "I suggest that you be extremely careful", though that is not irregular, as all verbs use the infinitive/imperative form for the present subjunctive.) It also has two past tense forms: was for the first and third persons singular, and were for the plural and second person singular (although there are certain subjunctive uses in which were can substitute for was). The past participle is been, and the present participle and gerund forms are regular: being.

As mentioned above, apart from its other irregularities, the verb do has the third person present indicative does pronounced with a short vowel.

The verb have has a contracted third person present indicative form: has. This is formed similarly to the verb's past tense had.

The verb say displays vowel shortening in the third person present indicative (although the spelling is regular): says . The same shortening occurs in the past form said . (Compare the diphthong in the plain form say .)

Coincident Forms

In regular English verbs, the past tense and past participle have the same form. This is also true of most irregular verbs that follow a variation of the weak conjugation, as can be seen in the list below. Differences between the past tense and past participle (as in sing–sang–sung, rise–rose–risen) generally appear in the case of verbs that continue the strong conjugation, or in a few cases weak verbs that have acquired strong-type forms by analogy—as with show (regular past tense showed, strong-type past participle shown). However, even some strong verbs have identical past tense and participle, as in cling–clung–clung.

In some verbs, the past tense, past participle, or both are identical in form to the basic (infinitive) form of the verb. This is the case with certain strong verbs, where historical sound changes have led to a leveling of the vowel modifications: for example, let has both past tense and past participle identical to the infinitive, while come has the past participle identical (but a different past tense, came). The same is true of the verbs listed above under as having undergone coalescence of final consonants (and without other irregularities such as vowel shortening or devoicing of the ending): bet, bid, etc. (these verbs have infinitive, past tense and past participle all identical, although some of them also have alternative regular forms in -ed). The verb read has the same spelling in all three forms, but not the same pronunciation, as it exhibits vowel shortening.

In a few cases the past tense of an irregular verb has the same form as the infinitive of a different verb. For example, bore and found may be past tenses of bear and find, but may also represent independent (regular) verbs of different meaning. Another example is lay, which may be the past tense of lie, but is also an independent verb (regular in pronunciation, but with irregular spelling: lay–laid–laid). In fact lay derives from a causative of the verb from which lie derives. The two verbs are sometimes confused, with lay used in the intransitive senses prescriptively reserved for lie.

Prefixed Verbs

Nearly all of the basic irregular verbs are single-syllable words. (Their irregular inflected forms are normally single-syllable also, except for the past participles in -en like chosen and risen.) However many additional irregular verbs are formed by adding prefixes to the basic ones: understand from stand, become from come, mistake from take, and so on. (These prefixed forms are generally omitted from the list below, but a large number appear in the table at List of English irregular verbs.) As a general rule, prefixed verbs are conjugated identically to the corresponding basic verbs; for example, we have understand–understood–understood and become–became–become, following the patterns of stand–stood–stood and come–came–come. However, there are occasional differences: in British English, for instance, the past participle of get is got, while that of forget is forgotten.

Only a few irregular verbs of more than one syllable cannot be analyzed as prefixed compounds of monosyllables. The only ones in normal use are begin–began–begun and forsake–forsook–forsaken (these both derive from prefixed verbs whose unprefixed forms have not survived into Modern English). There is also beseech–besought–besought (this is from Old English besēcan "to seek or inquire about", making it equivalent to be- + seek, but it has moved away from seek in both form and meaning); however the form besought is now archaic, the verb normally being conjugated regularly (beseeched).

List

The following is a list of 204 irregular verbs that are commonly used in standard modern English. It omits many rare, dialectal, and archaic forms, as well as most verbs formed by adding prefixes to basic verbs (unbend, understand, mistake, etc.).

It also omits past participle forms that remain in use only adjectivally (clad, sodden, etc.).

The list that follows shows the base, or infinitive form, the past tense and the past participle of the verb.

a- : for abide, arise, awake, see bide, rise, wake
be (am, is, are) – was, were – been
be- : for become, befall, beset, etc. see come, fall, set, etc.
bear – bore – borne spelt born in passive and adjectival uses relating to birth
beat – beat – beaten
beget – begot – begot(ten) Biblical past tense: begat
begin – began – begun
bend – bent – bent
bet – bet – bet past tense and participle also sometimes betted
beware – defective verb see anomalous cases above
bid – bid – bid as in an auction
bid – bade/bid – bidden/bid meaning "request"
bide – bided/bode – bided/bidden but abide mostly uses the regular forms only
bind – bound – bound
bite – bit – bitten
bleed – bled – bled
blow – blew – blown
break – broke – broken
breed – bred – bred
bring – brought – brought
build – built – built
burn – burnt/burned – burnt/burned
burst – burst – burst
buy – bought – bought
can – could defective; see anomalous cases above
cast – cast – cast prefixed forms broadcast, forecast, etc. sometimes take -ed
catch – caught – caught
choose – chose – chosen
clad – clad/cladded – clad/cladded clad is also sometimes used as past form of clothe
cleave – clove/cleft – cloven/cleft but regular when meaning "adhere"
cling – clung – clung
come – came – come
cost – cost – cost but regular when meaning "calculate the cost of"
creep – crept/creeped – crept/creeped
crow – crowed/crew – crowed crew normally used only of a cock's crowing
cut – cut – cut
dare – regular except for possible third person singular present dare (see anomalous cases above)
deal – dealt – dealt
dig – dug – dug
dive – dived/dove – dived the form dove is chiefly American
do (does ) – did – done
drag – dragged/drug – dragged/drug* the form drug is chiefly dialectal
draw – drew – drawn
dream – dreamed/dreamt – dreamed/dreamt
drink – drank – drunk
drive – drove – driven
dwell – dwelt/dwelled – dwelt/dwelled
eat – ate – eaten
fall – fell – fallen
feed – fed – fed
feel – felt – felt
fight – fought – fought
find – found – found
fit – fit/fitted – fit/fitted
flee – fled – fled
fling – flung – flung
fly – flew – flown the form flied is common in the baseball sense
for(e)- : for forgo, foresee, etc. see go, see, etc.
forbid – forbade/forbid – forbidden
forget – forgot – forgotten
forsake – forsook – forsaken
freeze – froze – frozen
get – got – gotten/got past participle got in British English, gotten in American, but see have got*
gild – gilded/gilt – gilded/gilt
give – gave – given
go) – went – gone see also have been
grind – ground – ground
grow – grew – grown
hang – hung/hanged – hung/hanged* the form hanged is more common in the sense of execution by hanging
have (has) – had – had
hear – heard – heard
hew – hewed – hewn/hewed
hide – hid – hidden
hit – hit – hit
hoist – hoist/hoisted – hoist/hoisted
hold – held – held
hurt – hurt – hurt
in- : for inlay, input, etc. see lay, put, etc.
inter- : for interlay, interweave, etc. see lay, weave, etc.
keep – kept – kept
kneel – knelt/kneeled – knelt/kneeled
knit – knit/knitted – knit/knitted
know – knew – known
lay – laid – laid
lead – led – led
lean – leaned/leant – leaned/leant
leap – leaped/leapt – leaped/leapt
learn – learned/learnt – learned/learnt
leave – left – left
lend – lent – lent
let – let – let
lie – lay – lain but regular when meaning "tell an untruth"
light – lit/lighted – lit/lighted
lose – lost – lost
make – made – made
may – might defective; see anomalous cases above
mean – meant – meant
meet – met – met
mis- : for misspeak, mistake, etc. see speak, take, etc.
mow – mowed – mowed/mown
must – defective see anomalous cases above
need – regular except for possible third person singular present need (see anomalous cases above)
off- : for offset see set, etc.
ought – defective see anomalous cases above
out- : for outbid, output, etc. see bid, put, etc.
over- : for overbid, overdo, etc. see bid, do, etc.
pay – paid – paid but sometimes spelt regularly when meaning "let out" (rope etc.)
plead – pleaded/pled – pleaded/pled
pre- : for prepay, preset, etc. see pay, set, etc.
prove – proved – proved/proven
put – put – put
quit – quit – quit
re- : for redo, remake, etc. see do, make, etc.
read – read – read
rend – rent – rent
rid – rid/ridded – rid/ridded/ridden
ride – rode – ridden
ring – rang – rung
rise – rose – risen
run – ran – run
saw – sawed – sawn/sawed
say (says ) – said – said
see – saw – seen
seek – sought – sought
sell – sold – sold
send – sent – sent
set – set – set
sew – sewed – sewn/sewed
shake – shook – shaken
shall – should defective; see anomalous cases above
shear – sheared/shore – shorn/sheared
shed – shed – shed
shine – shone/shined – shone/shined
shit – shat/shit/shitted – shat/shit/shitted
shoe – shoed/shod – shoed/shod
shoot – shot – shot
show – showed – shown/showed
shrink – shrank/shrunk – shrunk*
shrive – shrove – shriven
shut – shut – shut
sing – sang – sung
sink – sank – sunk
sit – sat – sat
slay – slew/slayed – slain/slayed
sleep – slept – slept
slide – slid – slid
sling – slung – slung
slink – slunk – slunk
slit – slit – slit
smell – smelled/smelt – smelled/smelt
smite – smote – smitten
sneak – sneaked/snuck – sneaked/snuck* snuck is chiefly American, is regarded as informal and is only cited from 1887
sow – sowed – sown/sowed
speak – spoke – spoken
speed – sped/speeded – sped/speeded
spell – spelled/spelt – spelled/spelt
spend – spent – spent
spill – spilled/spilt – spilled/spilt
spin – spun – spun
spit – spat/spit – spat/spit* the form spit rather than spat is common in America
split – split – split
spoil – spoiled/spoilt – spoiled/spoilt
spread – spread – spread
spring – sprang/sprung – sprung*
stand – stood – stood
stave – staved/stove – staved/stove
steal – stole – stolen
stick – stuck – stuck
sting – stung – stung
stink – stank – stunk
strew – strewed – strewn/strewed
stride – strode – stridden/strode
strike – struck – struck/stricken
string – strung – strung
strive – strove/strived – striven/strived
swear – swore – sworn
sweat – sweated/sweat – sweated/sweat
sweep – swept – swept
swell – swelled – swollen/swelled
swim – swam – swum
swing – swung – swung
take – took – taken
teach – taught – taught
tear – tore – torn
tell – told – told
think – thought – thought
thrive - thrived/throve - thrived/thriven
throw – threw – thrown
thrust – thrust/thrusted – thrust/thrusted
tread – trod – trodden/trod
un- : for unbend, unweave, etc. see bend, weave, etc.
under- : for underlie, undergo, understand, etc. see lie, go, stand, etc.
up- : for upset see set, etc.
wake – woke – woken
wear – wore – worn
weave – wove – woven
wed – wed/wedded – wed/wedded
weep – wept – wept
wet – wet/wetted – wet/wetted
will – would defective; see anomalous cases above
win – won – won
wind – wound – wound but regular in the meanings connected with air and breath
with- : for withdraw, withhold, withstand, see draw, hold, stand
wring – wrang/wrung – wrung*
write – wrote – written

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