Irregular Verbs

An important minority of English verbs are irregular in the way in which they form their past tense
and past participle. Regular verbs simply add -ed for both the past forms, whether they go back to
Anglo-Saxon, or are later acquisitions from French and Latin: want(ed), depart(ed), precipitat(ed).
The irregular verbs are remnants of several groups that existed in Anglo-Saxon, as well as once
regular verbs which have developed their own idiosyncrasies over the centuries.

The common irregular verbs are grouped below according to the number of changes that their
stems undergo to form the past tense and past participle. The great majority are conjugated in
exactly the same way for British and American English. But where the paradigms diverge slightly,
as when a verb is irregular for Brits but not necessarily for Americans (e.g. burn), or vice versa
(e.g. dive), it appears in the irregular class that covers its changes. Note that the classification is
based on spelling, not the sound of the word; and so the doubling of a consonant, the loss of a
final e or the alteration of a vowel from two letters to one would qualify as a change. All those in
bold are discussed further in individual entries in this book.

Irregular verbs by class

1 Those which use the same form for past and present:
burst cast cut hit hurt let
put quit read rid set shed
shut slit split spread thrust
The verbs bid meaning ‘declare (a wager),’ and cost (‘assess the value of’) can also be included
here, as well as spit (for American usage: cf. section 3 below). Beat belongs here in terms of its
past tense, and informal zero past participle: with the standard past participle beaten, it has more
in common with section 7 verbs. See also section 7a for bid (‘utter [a greeting]’). Other words of
this type appear under section 9.

2a) Those which keep the stem vowel as written and replace d with t:
bend build lend rend send spend
Two special cases are have and make, where d replaces other stem consonants.

2b) Those which simply add t, such as deal and mean. This also applies, for some British,
Canadian and Australian writers, to a number of other verbs including:
burn dream lean leap learn spoil
Others in Britain and Australia, and North Americans at large would keep such verbs regular. See
further under -ed.

3 Those which have a single vowel change for both past forms:
bleed breed feed meet speed (ee>e)
bind fight find grind wind (i>ou)
cling dig fling sling slink spin
stick sting string (i>u)
Special cases are win (i>o) shoot (oo>o), sit (i>a), hold (o>e), hang (a>u), all one-off examples
of the same kind. In American English spit>spat is a further example. Note also come and run,
which form past tenses by changing the vowel to a, but revert for the past participle.

1
4a) Those which change the stem vowel and follow it with t:
creep feel keep kneel sleep sweep weep (ee>e)

4b) Those which reduce a double consonant to single and add t:

dwell smell spell spill
For dwell, this is the dominant pattern worldwide, whereas the other three are kept regular by
Americans, Canadians and some Australians. (See under -ed.)

4c) Those which change the stem vowel and follow it with d:
sell tell (e>o)
A similar one-off example is do which becomes did.

5 Those which change the stem vowel and one or more of the consonants, as well as adding t:
bring>brought buy>bought catch>caught
leave>left seek>sought teach>taught
think>thought
Special cases of verbs which change vowels and consonants (but do not add t) are stand>stood
and strike>struck. The verb sneak with its alternative or colloquial past tense snuck, used in North
America and elsewhere, belongs to the same set.

6 Those with two different stem vowels for the past tense and the past participle:
begin drink ring shrink sing sink
spring stink swim (i>a>u)
Most of these can be found with u for the past tense in some linguistic and stylistic contexts: see
individual entries. See further under section 9.

7a) Those with a different stem vowel for the past tense, and the present tense vowel for the past
participle, with (e)n added on:
awake forsake shake take
wake (a<oo/o>a)
blow grow know
throw (o>e>o) ]
Others of the same kind are give, forgive (give>gave>given). One-off examples are bid (‘utter [a
greeting]’ with bade/bidden, eat (ate>eaten), fall (fell>fallen), draw (drew>drawn), and see
(saw>seen).

7b) Those which use a different stem vowel for both forms of the past (past tense and past
participle), and add e(n) to the latter:
break freeze speak steal weave (ea>o)
bear swear tear wear (ea>o)
Note that for bear the past participle is borne. Others which belong here are get and forget
(get>got>gotten), though the use of gotten with get is not found in all varieties of English. The
verbs bite and hide are further members of the set.

2
7c) Those with two different stem vowels for the past tense and the past participle, plus -en
added on:
drive ride rise strive write (i>o>i)
Stride has different forms for past tense / past participle in British English, but works with just one
(strode) in American English. Strive is conjugated as a weak verb by some in both the US and
the UK (see section 9). The American conjugation of dive with dove as past tense would fit here,
although it has no past participle with -en. Other special cases are fly (flew>flown) and lie
(lay>lain).

8 Those which borrow forms from other verbs to make their past tense (sometimes called
suppletive verbs). The outstanding cases of this are go (went) and be (was/were>been). The
verb be has more distinct parts than any other English verb. See further at be.

9 Unstable irregular verbs and hybrids. Changes are still going on for some verbs with irregular
parts. Some with two different forms for the past tense and past participle work increasingly with
just one. This is happening with shrink>shrank>shrunk (now often (shrink>shrunk) and almost all
section 6 verbs, aligning them with fling, slink and other section 3 verbs. These reduced patterns
are already quite common in speech, and will no doubt become unremarkable in writing, sooner
or later.

Other verbs showing ongoing changes are reverting to the regular pattern with -ed for the past
tense/participle. This is true for verbs such as bet, knit, shit, sweat, wed, wet. It can be seen
with:
light (lit) now often lighted
shear (shore>shorn) sheared
shine (shone) shined
shoe (shod) shoed
speed (sped) speeded
strive (strove>striven) strived
weave (wove>woven) weaved
In some cases, e.g. shine, weave, the regular past form has a slightly different meaning from the
irregular one (see under the individual entries). In others (e.g. strive) the shift is more advanced in
the US than the UK. This also holds for verbs such as hew, mow, which have long since acquired
a regular past tense, but their -n past participle stands firm, at least in the UK.

The number of verbs reverting to the regular pattern is much larger than that going the other way.
This opposite process can however be seen with hang and sneak (for both past forms), and saw
and show (for the past participle only). See individual entries.

Peters, P. The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. 2004.