English irregular verbs

Common card · No. 452389

As a Germanic language, the English language has many irregular verbs, overwhelmingly of Germanic origin, except for some words such as catch, approaching 200 in normal use – and significantly more if prefixed forms are counted. In most cases, the irregularity concerns the past tense (also called preterite) or the past participle. The other inflected parts of the verb – the third person singular present indicative in -[e]s, and the present participle and gerund form in -ing – are formed regularly in most cases. There are a few exceptions: the verb be has irregular forms throughout the present tense; the verbs have, do, and say have irregular -[e]s forms; and certain defective verbs (such as the modal auxiliaries) lack most inflection. Irregular verbs in Modern English include many of the most common verbs: the dozen most frequently used English verbs are all irregular. New verbs (including loans from other languages, and nouns employed as verbs) usually follow the regular inflection, unless...

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