14. Irregular verbs

An English verb is irregular when its past or past participle is not made by adding -ed (with the spelling rules of 06). The irregular verbs are a closed, slowly shrinking class of old, mostly native verbs; but they are the most frequent verbs of the language, so in running text irregular forms are common. This chapter gives their number and frequency (§1), their classes (§2), the verbs whose forms vary between varieties or meanings (§§3–5), the full table (§6), participle adjectives (§7) and how Mova handles them (§8).

1. How many, and how frequent

Number. In AGID 2016.01.19 (Kevin Atkinson's inflection database, the source of Mova's paradigms), 339 of 8 940 verb entries have a first-listed past form that the regular -ed rules do not produce (counted 2026-10-17 over infl.txt; the regular test accepts -ed, -d after e, y → ied and consonant doubling). About 150 of these are simple verbs; the rest are prefixed or compound verbs that inherit the irregularity: understand, overcome, undergo, mistake, outrun, rebuild, foresee, withdraw, babysit, proofread, broadcast, typeset. A few AGID entries are artifacts (gullet, inlet, missing listed as verbs).
Hidden irregulars. Some verbs look regular in spelling but are irregular in sound: hear–heard /hɪə–hɜːd/, say–said /seɪ–sed/, flee–fled, lay–laid, pay–paid (spelling -aid), make–made, have–had. The -t forms learnt, burnt, spelt are spelling-irregular too.
Frequency. Irregular verbs dominate the top of the frequency list. Of the 40 most frequent past-tense forms in UD EWT + ESLSpok train (en/data/forms.tsv, counted 2026-10-17), 23 are irregular: was (1 244), had (403), were (393), did (292), said (209), got (116), took (91), went (82), came (81), told (77), made (63), found (54), gave (46), thought (41), left (38), felt (25), saw (25), knew (23), brought (20), put (20), began (17), spent (17), sent (28). The ten most frequent verb lemmas in EWT train (counting VB* and MD tags) are all irregular: be (7 621), have (2 607), do (1 466), can (712), get (623), go (606), say (456), know (428), make (403), take (394).
Direction of change. The class loses members to the regular pattern (help–holp → helped, climb–clomb → climbed, work–wrought → worked), and regular pasts compete with irregular ones (dreamed/dreamt, learned/learnt); only a handful moved the other way (dive–dove, sneak–snuck in AmE, dig–dug replacing digged, spit–spat). New verbs are always regular (Sweet NEG I §1287), even when they look like an irregular one: ping–pinged (not *pang), bing–binged.

2. The classes

Old English had seven classes of strong verbs (vowel change: singan–sang–sungen) and weak verbs (dental suffix: -de, -te). After a thousand years of sound change and analogy these old classes no longer describe the forms; Jespersen MEG VI 4.1₁ says the old division "into three classes, strong, reduplicating, and weak, [has] no sense if we consider the flexions as found in actual usage", and proposes new classes by what happens to the present-day forms (MEG VI 4.3–5.6). This manual follows his eleven classes, with example verbs; Sweet NEG I §§1293–1472 groups them similarly into "consonantal" (with t/d), "invariable", "vocalic" and "mixed" verbs.

class (Jespersen)	what happens	examples
1 (4.3)	-t instead of -d, kernel unchanged	burn–burnt, dwell–dwelt, learn–learnt, smell–smelt, spell–spelt, spill–spilt, spoil–spoilt (all also regular, esp. AmE); build–built, send–sent, spend–spent belong to class 4
2 (4.4)	no change at all: stems in -t, -d	bet, burst, cast, cost, cut, fit (AmE), hit, hurt, let, put, quit, rid, set, shed, shut, slit, split, spread, thrust, wet; broadcast, forecast
3 (4.5)	-t added, vowel shortened	creep–crept, deal–dealt, dream–dreamt, feel–felt, keep–kept, kneel–knelt, lean–leant, leap–leapt, leave–left, mean–meant, sleep–slept, sweep–swept, weep–wept; lose–lost
4 (4.6)	-t replaces final -d	bend–bent, build–built, lend–lent, rend–rent, send–sent, spend–spent
5 (4.7)	-d added with vowel change	flee–fled, hear–heard, say–said, sell–sold, shoe–shod, tell–told; lay–laid, pay–paid
6 (4.8)	-d added, final consonant lost	have–had, make–made
7 (4.9)	-t added after a further change of the stem: the -ought/-aught verbs	beseech–besought, bring–brought, buy–bought, catch–caught, fight–fought, seek–sought, teach–taught, think–thought
8 (5.1)	no ending; one vowel change, past = participle	bind–bound, find–found, grind–ground, wind–wound; cling–clung, dig–dug, fling–flung, hang–hung, sling–slung, slink–slunk, spin–spun, stick–stuck, sting–stung, strike–struck, string–strung, swing–swung, wring–wrung; bleed–bled, breed–bred, feed–fed, lead–led, meet–met, read–read, speed–sped; hold–held, behold; light–lit, shine–shone, shoot–shot, sit–sat, slide–slid, spit–spat, stand–stood, understand; win–won; get–got (BrE)
9 (5.2)	no ending; three vowels (i–a–u type)	begin–began–begun, drink–drank–drunk, ring–rang–rung, shrink–shrank–shrunk, sing–sang–sung, sink–sank–sunk, spring–sprang–sprung, stink–stank–stunk, swim–swam–swum; run–ran–run, come–came–come, become
10 (5.3–5.4)	no ending in the past; participle in -(e)n	arise, awake, bear, beat, bite, blow, break, choose, draw, drive, eat, fall, fly, forbid, forget, forgive, forsake, freeze, get (AmE gotten), give, grow, hide, know, lie (lay–lain), ride, rise, see, shake, slay, speak, steal, stride, strive, swear, take, tear, throw, tread, wake, wear, weave, write
11 (5.5–5.6)	mixed: regular past, -n participle	hew–hewed–hewn, mow–mowed–mown, prove–proved–proven, saw–sawed–sawn, sew–sewed–sewn, show–showed–shown, sow–sowed–sown, strew–strewed–strewn, swell–swelled–swollen
suppletive	forms from different roots	be–was/were–been, go–went–gone; do–did–done (reduplicated past)

The modals (can–could, may–might, shall–should, will–would, must, ought) have past forms but no participles (13 §5).

2.1 Patterns in the vowel changes

The most regular sub-patterns, which children overgeneralize (brang after sang) and which still attract a few verbs:

pattern	examples
i – a – u	sing–sang–sung, ring, drink, sink, swim, begin, spring, stink, shrink
i – u – u	cling–clung, sting, swing, string, wring, fling, sling, slink, stick, dig, spin, win (won)
ee/ea – e – e + -t	keep–kept, sleep, sweep, weep, feel, kneel, creep, mean, deal, dream, leap, leave
ee/ea – e – e	bleed–bled, breed, feed, lead, meet, read, speed, flee
i–e – o – i–en	drive–drove–driven, ride–rode–ridden, rise–rose–risen, write–wrote–written, stride, strive, smite
ea/ee – o – o–en	speak–spoke–spoken, steal–stole–stolen, break–broke–broken, freeze–froze–frozen, weave–wove–woven, choose–chose–chosen, wake–woke–woken
ear – ore – orn	bear–bore–borne, swear–swore–sworn, tear–tore–torn, wear–wore–worn
ow – ew – own	blow–blew–blown, grow, know, throw, fly–flew–flown, draw–drew–drawn
-ought/-aught	class 7
-ind – -ound	bind, find, grind, wind

3. Variation between British and American English

verb	BrE	AmE	note
get	got – got	got – gotten ("obtained, become, received") / got ("have, must": I've got a car, I've got to go)	Horwill 1935: gotten survives in England only in forgotten, begotten; 08 §2.3
burn, dream, dwell, kneel, lean, leap, learn, smell, spell, spill, spoil	-t forms common (learnt, dreamt, spelt)	regular -ed usual	burnt adjective in both (burnt toast)
dive	dived	dove or dived
fit	fitted	fit (past and participle)	the suit fitted/fit him
sneak	sneaked	snuck (also sneaked)
plead	pleaded	pled (legal) or pleaded
prove	proved (proven in Scots law, as adjective)	proven and proved
quit, wet	quitted, wetted possible	quit, wet
spit	spat	spit or spat
stink, shrink, spring, sink	stank, shrank, sprang, sank	also stunk, shrunk, sprung, sunk as past
forbid	forbade /fəˈbæd/	forbade /-ˈbeɪd/, forbid
knit	knitted	knit (figurative and literal)
bet	bet, betted	bet

4. One spelling, two verbs (or two meanings)

verb	meaning 1 → forms	meaning 2 → forms
lie	recline: lie – lay – lain – lying	tell untruths: lie – lied – lied – lying
lay	put down (transitive): lay – laid – laid	(the past of lie is also lay: a constant source of confusion, I laid down for I lay down)
hang	suspend: hung	execute: hanged (formal; hung informal)
shine	give light: shone	polish: shined
wind /waɪnd/	turn, coil: wound /waʊnd/	wind /wɪnd/ "make breathless": winded
find	found	found /faʊnd/ "establish": founded
bear	carry, endure: borne	give birth: born in the passive (she was born), borne in the active (she has borne three children)
bid	offer a price: bid – bid	command, say (literary): bade – bidden
ring	sound: rang – rung	encircle: ringed
tear /teə/	rip: tore – torn	tear /tɪə/ "shed tears": teared
fly	flew – flown	baseball "hit a fly ball": flied
speed	sped	speeded up (accelerated)
weave	make cloth: wove – woven	move in and out: weaved
cleave	split: cleft/clove – cleft/cloven (also cleaved)	cling: cleaved
spit	expel saliva: spat	pierce with a spit: spitted
lead /liːd/	guide: led	lead /led/ "cover with lead": leaded
leave	go away: left	produce leaves: leaved
pay	paid	nautical "slacken": payed
slit	cut: slit	narrow (the eyes): slitted

Jespersen MEG VI 4.3–5.6 discusses these pairs verb by verb; AGID marks them with explanations in braces (hung, hanged {execute}).

5. Non-standard and older forms

Levelling of past and participle, common in non-standard speech: I seen it, I done it, he come yesterday, she has went, I have wrote; Jespersen MEG VI 5.3 cites he has just drove up to the door as "now vulgar". UD EWT keeps such a form and tags it by its function, marking it Typo=Yes with the standard form in CorrectForm when the annotators judged it an error (e.g. come tagged VBZ with CorrectForm=comes; give as VBN with Typo=Yes), or Style=Vrnc for deliberate vernacular (15 tokens in EWT train).
Over-regularization in learners and children: goed, bringed, catched, teached, thinked, buyed; Mova's error seed Regular endings on irregular verbs: goed, buyed describes how UD annotates them (the intended lemma and tag).
Archaic and biblical forms: spake, brake, bare, sware, gat, digged, holpen, wrought (09 §3.4).
Dialect forms: drownded, attackted (with an extra syllable), brung, clumb, het (heated), knowed, growed, throwed (regularized), et /et/ (BrE for ate, once standard in the south of England).

6. The table

The table below lists the simple irregular verbs and the most common prefixed ones, with their past and past participle as given by AGID 2016.01.19, the source of Mova's paradigms (generated from infl.txt on 2026-10-17 and checked by hand; less-preferred variants of AGID level 1 are marked †, level-2 variants (archaic, rare or doubtful) are left out, and AGID's notes on meaning are kept in brackets). Prefixed verbs inflect like their base (mistake like take, overcome like come, undergo like go) and are mostly not repeated.

base	past	past participle
abide	abode, abided†	abode, abided†
arise	arose	arisen
awake	awoke, awaked†	awoken, awaked†, awoke†
bear	bore	borne, born†
beat	beat	beaten, beat†
become	became	become
befall	befell	befallen
beget	begot	begotten, begot†
begin	began	begun
behold	beheld	beheld
bend	bent	bent
bereave	bereaved, bereft†	bereaved, bereft†
beseech	besought, beseeched†	besought, beseeched†
bet	bet, betted†	bet, betted†
bid	bid, bade (command)	bidden, bid
bind	bound	bound
bite	bit	bitten
bleed	bled	bled
blow	blew	blown
break	broke	broken
breed	bred	bred
bring	brought	brought
broadcast	broadcast, broadcasted†	broadcast, broadcasted†
build	built	built
burn	burned, burnt†	burned, burnt†
burst	burst, bursted†	burst, bursted†
buy	bought	bought
cast	cast	cast
catch	caught	caught
choose	chose	chosen
cleave	cleaved (split), clove (split), cleaved (cling), cleft (split)	cleaved, cleft, cloven
cling	clung	clung
clothe	clothed, clad†	clothed, clad†
come	came	come
cost	cost	cost
creep	crept	crept
cut	cut	cut
deal	dealt	dealt
dig	dug	dug
dive	dived, dove† (AmE)	dived
do	did	done
draw	drew	drawn
dream	dreamed, dreamt†	dreamed, dreamt†
drink	drank	drunk, drank†
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	fitted† (BrE), fit† (AmE)	fitted, fit
flee	fled	fled
fling	flung	flung
fly	flew, flied (baseball)	flown
forbid	forbade, forbad†	forbidden
forecast	forecast, forecasted†	forecast, forecasted†
forget	forgot	forgotten
forgive	forgave	forgiven
forsake	forsook	forsaken
freeze	froze	frozen
get	got	got (BrE); gotten (AmE), got
gild	gilded, gilt†	gilded, gilt†
gird	girded, girt†	girded, girt†
give	gave	given
go	went	gone
grind	ground	ground
grow	grew	grown
hang	hung, hanged (execute)	hung, hanged (execute)
have	had	had
hear	heard	heard
hew	hewed	hewn, hewed
hide	hid	hidden, hid†
hit	hit	hit
hold	held	held
hurt	hurt	hurt
keep	kept	kept
kneel	knelt, kneeled†	knelt, kneeled†
knit	knitted, knit† (AmE, figurative)	knitted, knit
know	knew	known
lay	laid	laid
lead	led, leaded (use lead)	led, leaded (use lead)
lean	leaned, leant†	leaned, leant†
leap	leaped, leapt, lept†	leaped, leapt, lept†
learn	learned, learnt†	learned, learnt†
leave	left, leaved (produce leaves)	left, leaved (produce leaves)
lend	lent	lent
let	let	let
lie	lay (recline); lied (tell lies)	lain (recline); lied (tell lies)
light	lighted, lit†	lighted, lit†
lose	lost	lost
make	made	made
mean	meant	meant
meet	met	met
mow	mowed	mowed, mown†
overcome	overcame	overcome
pay	paid, payed (slacken)	paid, payed (slacken)
plead	pleaded, pled†	pleaded, pled†
prove	proved	proved, proven†
put	put	put
quit	quit, quitted†	quit, quitted†
read	read† /red/	read† /red/
rend	rent	rent
rid	rid, ridded†	rid, ridded†
ride	rode	ridden
ring	rang† (sound), ringed† (encircle)	rung†, ringed
rise	rose	risen
run	ran	run
say	said	said
see	saw	seen
seek	sought	sought
sell	sold	sold
send	sent	sent
set	set	set
sew	sewed	sewn, sewed†
shake	shook	shaken
shear	sheared	sheared, shorn†
shed	shed	shed
shine	shone, shined (polish)	shone, shined (polish)
shoe	shod, shoed†	shod, shoed†, shodden†
shoot	shot	shot
show	showed	shown, showed†
shrink	shrank, shrunk†	shrunk, shrunken†
shut	shut	shut
sing	sang	sung
sink	sank, sunk†	sunk, sunken†
sit	sat	sat
slay	slew	slain
sleep	slept	slept
slide	slid	slid
sling	slung	slung
slink	slunk, slinked†	slunk, slinked†
slit	slit (cut), slitted (narrow)	slit (cut), slitted (narrow)
smell	smelled, smelt†	smelled, smelt†
smite	smote	smitten, smote†, smit†
sneak	sneaked, snuck†	sneaked, snuck†
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† (saliva, AmE), spitted† (pierce)	spat, spit†, spitted
split	split	split
spoil	spoiled, spoilt†	spoiled, spoilt†
spread	spread	spread
spring	sprang, sprung†	sprung
stand	stood	stood
steal	stole	stolen
stick	stuck	stuck
sting	stung	stung
stink	stank, stunk†	stunk
strew	strewed	strewn, strewed
stride	strode	stridden
strike	struck	struck, stricken†
string	strung	strung
strive	strove, strived†	striven, strived†
swear	swore	sworn
sweat	sweat, sweated†	sweat, sweated†
sweep	swept	swept
swell	swelled	swollen, swelled
swim	swam	swum
swing	swung	swung
take	took	taken
teach	taught	taught
tear	tore† (rip), teared† (cry)	torn†, teared
tell	told	told
think	thought	thought
throw	threw	thrown
thrust	thrust	thrust
tread	trod	trodden, trod†
undergo	underwent	undergone
understand	understood	understood
undertake	undertook	undertaken
wake	woke, waked	woken, waked, woke†
wear	wore	worn
weave	wove (fabric), weaved (zigzag)	woven
weep	wept	wept
wet	wet, wetted†	wet, wetted†
win	won	won
wind† /waɪnd/	wound† (curve, wind up)	wound
withdraw	withdrew	withdrawn
withhold	withheld	withheld
work	worked, wrought†	worked, wrought†
wring	wrung	wrung
write	wrote	written, writ†

7. Old participles as adjectives

Several verbs have an old -en participle that survives only as an adjective, beside a newer participle used in verb forms (Jespersen MEG VI 5.7, "participles in -n"):

verb form	adjective	example
drunk	drunken	a drunken sailor (but he was drunk)
sunk	sunken	sunken cheeks, a sunken ship
shrunk	shrunken	a shrunken head
struck	stricken	grief-stricken, panic-stricken
melted	molten	molten lava
proved	proven	a proven method (also verbal in AmE)
shaved	shaven	clean-shaven
swelled	swollen	a swollen ankle (swollen is also the usual participle)
rotted	rotten	rotten eggs
loaded	laden	heavily laden, debt-laden
engraved	graven	graven images
beholden, misshapen, unbeknown, ill-gotten, sodden (from seethe), forlorn (from forlese), wrought (from work)		fixed adjectives
learned /lɜːnd/	learned /ˈlɜːnɪd/	a learned man (04 §6.2)
bound	-bound	housebound, snowbound (from bind); bound for "heading for" is another word

8. How Mova handles irregular verbs

Lexicon. All irregular forms are listed, not computed. en/data/forms.tsv holds AGID's full paradigm of every verb (sources a and r in its fifth column) and the UD counts of every form seen in EWT + ESLSpok train (source u), e.g. went VBD → go with 82 UD tokens; geese NNS → goose from AGID only. en/build.rs compiles it into static hash tables, so nothing is read at run time.
Lemmatization (Morph::lemmatize, en/src/morph.rs): Early Modern forms first (archaic: spake → speak, brake → break), then the most frequent UD analysis of the form with its tag, then AGID. Homograph pasts and participles are decided by the tag: read VBD and VBN → read; put, cut, hit, set likewise; left VBD → leave but JJ → left; found VBD → find but VB → found; lay VBD → lie but VB/VBP → lay; saw VBD → see but NN → saw (seed Homographs: the past of one verb = the base of another (found, saw, lay)).
Inflection (Morph::inflect): the UD-preferred form, then AGID's main form for the paradigm cell; so go + VBD → went, sing + VBN → sung. The unit test dictionary checks went ↔ go both ways and the case-preserving encoding (Went → lemma go with Case::Title).
Variants: a gap. The lexicon takes from AGID only the main form of each paradigm cell (en — Mova's English graph compressor: "UD / main form of an AGID cell / clean for reverse lookup / stem"); AGID's less-preferred variants (the † forms in §6) are absent unless UD EWT or ESLSpok happens to contain them. Checked on 2026-10-17 in en/data/forms.tsv: learnt (VBD, VBN), gotten (VBN, 7 tokens), proven (VBN, 4) and knelt are present; dreamt, spelt, spilt, spoilt, leant, leapt as verbs, snuck, and dove as a past (only the noun dove is there) are not. For these the lemmatizer falls through to the regular reverse rules, which have nothing for a final -t, so dreamt/VBD comes out with lemma dreamt. Generation uses the main forms: dreamed, learned, burned, got. Adding AGID's level-1 variants to the reverse-lookup table would close the gap.
Unknown verbs fall back to the regular rules (suffix), which is right for new verbs (googled) and wrong only for unknown prefixed irregulars that AGID lacks (a rare case: AGID lists most of them, from babysit to withstand).
Seeds describing the classes and their UD annotation: Strong verbs: sing–sang–sung, write–wrote–written, verb-mixed-weak.md, verb-invariable.md, verb-homograph-past.md, verb-vbd-past.md, verb-vbn-participle.md, verb-participle-adjectives.md; errors: Regular endings on irregular verbs: goed, buyed.

Sources for this chapter

Jespersen 1942, MEG VI chapters IV–V (4.1 introductory; 4.2 regular; 4.3–5.6 irregular verbs, classes 1–11; 5.7 participles in -n). archive.org/details/modernenglishgra06jesp ; library books/j/je/jespersen-1914-modern-english-grammar-historical (text-5)
Sweet 1891, NEG I §§1286–1287 (regular verbs), §§1293–1476 (irregular verbs: consonantal, invariable, vocalic, mixed, isolated forms). archive.org/details/newenglishgramma01sweeuoft our card
Horwill 1935, A Dictionary of Modern American Usage (gotten, dove). archive.org/details/dli.ernet.15683
Hejná & Walkden 2022, §5.3.2 ("Strong verbs vs. irregular verbs"). zenodo.org/records/6560337 our card
Atkinson, Kevin. AGID 2016.01.19, infl.txt (permissive licence). wordlist.aspell.net/other ; raw copy en-gram-agid; table and counts generated 2026-10-17.
UD English EWT 2.18 train (CC BY-SA 4.0): frequency counts, 2026-10-17. universaldependencies.org/treebanks/en ewt/index.html
Mova: en/src/morph.rs, en/data/forms.tsv, en/build.rs, seeds listed in §8.

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