Weak verbs

Weak verbs are verbs that form their past tense and past participle with a suffix such as -ed. Note that they are not the same as regular verbs, as weak verbs include leave and mean, which do not form their past tense and past participle regularly. In other words, all regular verbs are weak verbs, but not all weak verbs are regular verbs. This page is focused on the irregular forms, so verbs like talk and lay (which is irregular only in spelling) are not included.

Originally, there were three classes of weak verbs in Old English, but they have broken down in many ways, and these ways are listed as classes herein. Since the past tense and the past participle for weak verbs now have the same form, they are listed as past form here.

A (*) put after a form shows that it is what the irregular form would have likeliest become and is not attested in New English.

For a list of other irregular verbs, see here.

Class 1
In this class, the ending comes with a change in the root's vowel sound. These verbs continue the Rückumlaut (reverse umlaut) pattern.

Irregular verbs currently used in standard speech:

Notes:


 * Beseech is truly a derivative of seek, but it is not apparent at once that seek and beseech are related. One reason for this difference is that in the inflected OE forms sēcst and sēcþ, the consonant was not palatalized, and these forms may have then influenced the form of the infinitive. Another reason is that Norse influence may have helped seek drive out seech.
 * Bring is truly a weak verb, but the tendency to regularize it by analogy with Class 3 strong verbs has occasionally popped up (i.e., making the forms brang and brung). This tendency was even in Old English, as there was the rare past participle gebrungen.
 * The obsolete verb think (meaning seem) came to have the same past tense and participle forms as the usual verb think and lives on only in the phrase methinks.
 * Fight, which has fought as its past tense and its past participle, seems to resemble these verbs at first, but it is not a weak verb at all; rather, it is a strong verb of Class 3. It is apparent when one sees that there is no consonantal addition in fight to form fought, whereas a consonant is added to seek to form sought.

Formerly irregular verbs currently used in standard speech:

Notes:


 * The etymology of pitch is uncertain. The irregular forms that it had in Middle English could have been passed down from its unattested Old English forebear, or they could have been made by analogy. This verb is not related to pitch that refers to the sticky substance and is attested in Old English.
 * The etymology of hatch is uncertain, since it is not attested in Old English; it begins to be attested in Middle English with the irregular past tense and past participle.
 * The etymology of snatch is unknown; it may have come from an unattested Old English forebear, though its irregular past form has been attested only since the 17th century.
 * The past participle of stretch lives on in an alternative form as the adjective straight.
 * The OE form of thatch was þeccan, which would have normally become thetch. However, it was later influenced by the related noun thack (which later became thatch from the verb's influence).
 * Work is now a fully regular verb, wrought surviving only as an adjective. The OE past tense was worhte, and it became wrohte through metathesis. If the unmetathesized form had survived, it would have become worght.

Archaic, dialectal, or obsolete verbs:

Notes:


 * Clutch arose as a variant of clitch, which is now used only dialectally.
 * The -ledge suffix is now found only in acknowledge; if the irregular past form had survived, it would be acknowlaught.

Reconstructed verbs:

Notes:


 * The Old English verb leccan may be the source of leach; the verb is not attested in Middle English, and so leach may have come from a dialectal variant thereof.
 * Though ME thricchen did not survive in standard speech, thrutch, a dialectal variant, is apparently used by some as part of climbing jargon.

Class 2
In this class, the vowel was originally shortened from the suffix's addition.

Irregular verbs currently used in standard speech:

Notes:


 * Bereave is the only remnant of the archaic verb reave (meaning rob, past form reft).
 * Creep, flee, sleep, and weep were originally strong verbs, but they are now used as weak verbs formed thus.
 * Leap, also originally a strong verb, may have leapt as its past tense, but can be found conjugated regularly.
 * Cleave meaning split may still be used with the strong inflection; that is, clove and cloven may be used instead of cleft.
 * Leant is mainly British.
 * The vowel's shortening in said appears to have taken place in Early New English. Exceptionally, the same shortening takes place in says and the archaic form saith, which makes say one of the very few verbs to have an irregular present inflection.
 * Shod is anomalous as an irregular form; the Old English form was scōde, which would have normally become shoed. But the past form's consonant became doubled in Middle English, which yielded shod.

Archaic, dialectal, or obsolete verbs:

Notes:


 * Clepe, an archaic verb meaning name, call, may have yclept as the past participle. The y- is the old past participle prefix, and yclept is occasionally used in New English as a literary word.

Class 3
In this class, the original suffix has been dropped, but the original vowel's shortening has been kept.

Irregular verbs currently used in standard speech:

Notes:


 * Light is sometimes conjugated regularly and so has lighted as its regular form. The regular form seems to be more commonly used for alight.
 * Plead is sometimes used with the irregular form, but it seems that pleaded is preferred.
 * Shoot and slide were originally strong verbs, but since their strong forms happen to resemble this subclass's weak forms, and their strong past participles are now disused, they appear no different from these irregular weak verbs.
 * Read has been treated as a weak verb since Old English, as the strong forms were already seldom used back then.

Formerly irregular verbs currently used in standard speech:

Notes:


 * Betide is the only remnant of the obsolete verb tide meaning happen.
 * Glide was originally a strong verb conjugated like drive, but glid later became its only strong form (later interpreted to be an irregular weak form). However, even glid became archaic, and so glide is now a fully regular verb.

Reconstructed verbs:

Class 4
In this class, the ending has been contracted with the d in the root.

Irregular verbs currently used in standard speech:

Notes:


 * Gilded and girded may be used instead of gilt and girt, respectively.
 * The obsolete verb lend meaning arive has the same past tense and past participle form as the usual word lend.

Formerly irregular verbs currently used in standard speech:

Notes:


 * Blend (which is most likely from Old Norse) once used blent as the past tense and the past participle, but this is now poetic.
 * The past tense of wend is now wended, as went became the past tense of go when the past tense of the latter had become obsolete.

Archaic, dialectal, or obsolete verbs:

There is a set of verbs that show -t where -ed is expected, but do not have a d in the root to change into t. These are used mainly in British English.

Notes:


 * Dwell once belonged to Class 1, as its Old English past tense was dwealde and would have become dwold.
 * Pent is now used only as an adjective in the phrase pent-up.

Class 5
In this class, the suffix has disappeared without any change in the root, whence the infinitive, the past tense, and the past participle are all the same in form.

Irregular verbs currently used in standard speech:

Notes:


 * Bid, burst, let, and shed were originally strong verbs, but from loss of their strong past participles and other sound changes, their principal parts are now uniform.
 * Spit was originally a regular verb, but it now has two differing ways for the past tense and the past participle: either spit or spat (by analogy with sit - sat) is. Likewise, for shit (originally a strong verb), shit or shat is used.
 * Some of these verbs such as wed and knit are still conjugated regularly.
 * Sweat is now oftener conjugated as a fully regular verb, i.e., it uses the regular form sweated.

Formerly irregular verbs currently used in standard speech:

Archaic, dialectal, or obsolete verbs:

Notes:


 * Fraught is now obsolete as a verb, but the past participle fraught lives on as an adjective.

Class 6
In this class, the last consonant has been lost. There are only three verbs:

Clad arose from forms in which the vowel was shortened in Middle English before the last consonant was lost. Unlike other verbs of this subclass, clothe also has a regular past form, clothed, and so clad is not mandatory to use. Clad has also become a verb meaning provide with a covering, e.g., He will clad the building in steel.

Have in Old English had the following forms:


 * Infinitive: habban.
 * First and third-person singular past indicative and subjunctive: hæfde.
 * Past participle: gehæfd.

Naturally, over time, the past tense and the past participle were contracted into had, the vowel no longer distinct from the one in the infinitive.

The verb behave is etymologically a derivative of have, but because their pronunciation has diverged, behave is no longer recognized as such, and so it is conjugated as a regular verb.

Make in Old English had the following forms:


 * Infinitive: macian.
 * First and third-person singular past indicative and subjunctive: macode.
 * Past participle: macod.

The form for the past tense and past participle would have normally become maked. However, it was later contracted to made.