Irregular Verbs — Definition and Examples

Written by

Daniel Bal

July 5, 2023

Edited by

Courtney Adamo

Fact-checked by

Paul Mazzola

What are irregular verbs?

Irregular verbs are action words that do not follow the typical past tense or past participle form. For most verbs, adding -ed, -d, or -t to the end of the word’s infinitive (base form) creates the past tense. However, irregular verbs have no consistent rules for verb conjugation.

The past participle is a verb tense that is usually combined with a form of "has" or "be" and indicates the completion of an event before another event occurs in the present.

List of irregular verbs

Detailed below are lists of English irregular verbs broken down into four main categories:

Most irregular verbs have a different form of the verb in every tense, including the following:

The following are some irregular verbs that have the same past tense and past participle form:

Some irregular verbs never change their form, such as the following:

Three irregular verbs only change in the past tense:

Irregular verb examples

The following sentences incorporate 10 of the most common irregular verbs:

• Say/Said/Said

  • What are you trying to say?

  • That's not what I said to him.

  • Do you recall what I had said?

• Make/Made/Made

  • Steven needed to make sandwiches for the party.

  • Steven made sandwiches for the party.

  • Steven had made sandwiches before the party started.

• Go/Went/Gone

  • Lisa wanted to go before the snowstorm hit.

  • Lisa went to the store to buy supplies.

  • Lisa had gone to the supermarket before leaving town.

• Take/Took/Taken

  • The family wanted to take a trip to the beach.

  • The family took the scenic route to the beach.

  • The family had taken all of their friends to the beach.

• Come/Came/Come

  • Stan wants all of us to come to his house for dinner.

  • Todd and Jenifer came to the house for dinner.

  • Kevin and Maria had come to the house before the dinner started.

• Know/Knew/Known

  • She should know all of the answers to your questions.

  • I can't believe she knew the entire history of the manor.

  • Had I known how great the tour was, I would've come sooner.

• Give/Gave/Given

  • Troy always thought it was better to give than receive.

  • Troy gave most of his bonus to charity.

  • Troy had given the charity everything he could afford.

• Show/Showed/Shown

  • Amanda knew she had to show she could get over losing the game.

  • Amanda showed no emotion despite the loss.

  • Amanda had shown remarkable improvement since the first game.

• Begin/Began/Begun

  • The show is about to begin.

  • The show began right on time.

  • The show had just begun when they arrived.

• Teach/Taught/Taught

  • Mr. Jones knew he had to teach the class about irregular verbs.

  • In yesterday's lesson, Mr. Jones taught us about irregular verbs.

  • If Mr. Jones had taught irregular verbs, we would've done better on the test.

Regular and irregular verbs

Regular verbs in the English language follow the typical past tense form; simply adding an -ed, -d, or -t to these words creates the past tense and past participle form. Unlike irregular verbs, the past tense and past participle forms of regular verbs are the same.

The following chart identifies some of the most common regular verbs:

Note that these examples are in American English; British English sometimes uses different past tense spellings (e.g., American “spelled” and “spilled” vs. British “spelt” and “spilt”).