-t
-t suffix: used to form the past tense and/or past participle of some verbs.
Suffix (1)
-t
- Used to form the past tense and/or past participle of some verbs.
- leap + -t → leapt
- keep + -t → kept
Suffix (2)
-t
- An excrescent ending appended to words suffixed with -s.
- against, amidst, amongst, betwixt, whilst, twicet
Suffix (3)
-t
- Used to form nouns from verbs of action; equivalent to -th.
- arise + -t → arist
- bow + -t → bout
Suffix (4)
-t
Suffix (5)
-t
- Added to the end of words ending in ⟨d⟩, representing an AAVE pronunciation as /t/ rather than /d/, now generally with intensifying force.
- period + -t → periodt
- good + -t → goodt
Forms of -t
| alternative form | -et |
|---|
Origin of -t
From Middle English -te (past tense ending), -t (past participle ending), from Old English -te, -de (first and third person past tense ending), -t, -ed, -od (past participle ending), from Proto-Germanic *-id- (past tense stem ending of class 1 weak verbs) and *-idaz (past participle ending of class 1 weak verbs). In some verbs, like lose/lost, the ‐t‐/‐t arose during the Middle English period from the devoicing of the earlier ‐d‐/‐d. This devoicing typically occurred after the suffix was syncopated from ‐ede and ‐ed, forcing the voiced alveolar stop directly against the stem’s final consonant. See -ed (etymologies 1 and 2). Furthermore, in forms such as spelt and burnt, the participial -t is a later development during the Early Modern English period.
From Middle English -t (e.g. aȝenst vs. aȝens (“against”)), likely resulting from -s + the, or various other words beginning with th-, t-.
From Middle English -t, from Old English -t, variant of -þ (“-th”) following spirant/fricative sounds, from Proto-Germanic *-þiz. More at -th.
Words formed from -t
- abasht
- abolisht
- absorpt
- accomplisht
- accurst
- admonisht
- addrest
- advanc’t
- ambusht
- anguisht
- annext
- approacht
- askt
- astonisht
- attacht
- attackt
- avoucht
- banisht
- bent
- begat
- begot
- belcht
- bereft
- beset
- besought
- besprent
- bethought
- bit
- bleacht
- blemisht
- blent
- blest
- blockt
- blusht
- bornt
- bought
- brandisht
- brought
- brusht
- built
- burnisht
- burnt
- bynempt
- caught
- ceast
- checkt
- cherisht
- clasht
- cleft
- chirpt
- clapt
- clept
- clipt
- comprest
- condenst
- confest
- contradistinguisht
- crasht
- crept
- cropt
Questions about -t
- What does -t mean?
- -t means used to form the past tense and/or past participle of some verbs.
- What part of speech is -t?
- -t is a suffix.
Words near -t in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: -t (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “-t.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-t. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.