- Irregular verbs are verbs that do not follow the normal pattern of conjugation to express tenses and past participles.
- Unlike regular verbs, which take on their simple past tense and past participle forms by adding -ed or -d to their base, irregular verbs are conjugated in many unpredictable ways.
- While most irregular verbs are irregular only in their simple past and past participle forms, a few are irregular in other conjugations.
- Some irregular verbs don’t change form at all when conjugated.
Irregular verbs are among the most confusing aspects of language because they follow no set formula and require memorization. While most languages have some irregular verbs, English has more than many. Below, we’ll share a list of common irregular verbs and their verb forms to help explain what they are and how they work.
Table of contents
List of common irregular verbs
Common irregular verbs that don’t change form
Common mistakes to avoid with irregular verbs
What are irregular verbs?
Irregular verbs are verbs that follow their own rules about how they change form. There are around 200 of them in regular use in English, and that group includes samples from pretty much all the other categories that verbs can be sorted into, including:
- Both transitive and intransitive verbs
- Verbs that express actions
- Verbs that express states
- Linking verbs
- Modal verbs
- Auxiliary verbs
Specifically, whereas regular verbs follow the standard conjugation rules for how they change endings to show tenses and form past participles, irregular verbs change form in much less predictable ways.
Their unpredictability makes it necessary to commit their irregular forms to memory or look them up in a dictionary.
Conjugating regular vs. irregular verbs
The simplest way to understand the difference between regular and irregular verb conjugation is to look at an example of the simple past tense and past participle forms of each (these are the only forms in which the vast majority of irregular verbs are irregular).
Here, we’ll compare to play and to sing. To play is regular, while to sing is irregular. This means that you can take any of the conjugations of to play and confidently apply their endings to any of the thousands of other regular verbs in English. But you can’t automatically apply the conjugations of to sing to any other verb—not even a rhyming irregular verb like to swing that matches up in some of them.
To conjugate to play in the simple past and to form its past participle, you simply add -ed:
- Base: play
- Simple past tense/Past participle: played
To sing doesn’t follow the same pattern, because it is irregular—singed is not the simple past/past participle form. Instead, sing has both a unique past tense and a unique past participle form. The only way to know how to conjugate sing is to memorize or look up its special forms.
- Base: sing
- Simple past tense: sang
- Participle: sung
In practice, you end up with conjugations like these:
Irregular verbs with irregular present tense forms
Nearly all irregular verbs are irregular only in their simple past tense and participle forms, as we saw above. However, there are a handful that have special present tense forms as well, most notably to be, to have, to do, and to go. Here are the forms for those four verbs:
- Base: be
- Present: am, is, are
- Simple past: was, were
- Past participle: been
- Base: have
- Present: have, has
- Simple past/Past participle: had
- Base: do
- Present: do/does
- Simple past: did
- Past participle: done
- Base: go
- Present: go/goes
- Simple past: went
- Past participle: gone
List of common irregular verbs
Below, we list the most common irregular verbs, to provide a quick reference in case you forget one. (Note that the past tense verbs in the chart below are shown in American English forms; there are some differences in British English.)
Instead of listing the irregular verbs in each of their verb tenses, the table lists only the simple past tense and past participle forms, along with the base, as those are the only irregular conjugations for all but a few of these verbs (you can consult the previous section for the irregular simple present tense forms of those few exceptions).
Please note that irregular verbs formed by adding a prefix to an irregular base verb (e.g., resell or undo) use the same irregular forms as their base words (e.g., resold or undid).
Also, you’ll notice in this table that some irregular verbs don’t change at all—the base, simple past tense, and past participle forms are all the same word. We discuss this type of irregular verb in the next section.
Common irregular verbs that don’t change
Most verbs, both regular and irregular, have different verb forms for different tenses. However, certain verbs don’t change forms at all. They use the same word and the same spelling for their simple present, simple past, and past participle forms. Because these words don’t follow the normal rules, they’re also considered irregular.
You can find some of these words in the table above, but to speed up your search, we’ve also included them in the list below:
- bet
- bid
- broadcast
- burst
- cast
- cost
- cut
- hit
- hurt
- let
- proofread (see read)
- put
- read (simple past and past participle are spelled the same but pronounced differently)
- reset
- set
- shed
- shut
- split
- spread
- thrust
- upset
- wet
Common mistakes to avoid with irregular verbs
Because using irregular verbs correctly requires memorization, there are some traps it’s easy to fall into, thinking the way you’ve memorized is correct when it’s not.
One of the most common errors people make with irregular verbs is forgetting when the simple past doesn’t match the past participle (because it so often does):
- Past: I drank plenty of water.
- Past participle: I thought I had drunk enough. (not had drank)
- Past: The cat sprang out of hiding.
- Past participle: The cat had sprung out of hiding. (not had sprang)
It’s also easy to incorrectly form a past participle based on a pattern some other irregular verbs follow: bought, not boughten.
Remember, irregular verbs are unpredictable, and memorizing them can be tough, but the dictionary is your friend.
Irregular verbs FAQs
What is an irregular verb?
An irregular verb is a verb that does not follow the standard pattern for conjugation. Unlike regular verbs, which add -ed or -d to form the past tense and past participle, irregular verbs have unique forms that must be memorized or looked up.
What’s the difference between regular and irregular verbs?
Regular verbs follow predictable conjugation patterns by adding -ed or -d to the base form to create the past tense and past participle. Irregular verbs, on the other hand, deviate from this rule and have unique conjugations, such as to go (past: went) or to eat (past: ate).
How many irregular verbs are there in English?
There are over 200 commonly used irregular verbs in English. Some, like to go and to be, are essential for everyday conversation, while others are less frequently used.
Why are irregular verbs difficult to learn?
Irregular verbs can be challenging because they don’t follow consistent patterns. They have many unique past tense and past participle forms, requiring memorization and referencing a dictionary. Additionally, some verbs don’t change forms at all, which can cause confusion.
What are some examples of irregular verbs that don’t change form?
Certain irregular verbs remain the same in their base, past tense, and past participle forms. Examples include cut, set, put, and spread. While their conjugation is straightforward, their unchanged forms can sometimes be misread or mistaken for errors in context.
