Word.ws English Dictionary

ebbed and flowed

ebbed and flowed is the simple past and past participle of ebb and flow.

Meaning of ebb and flow

Verb

ebb and flow (third-person singular simple present ebbs and flows, present participle ebbing and flowing, simple past and past participle ebbed and flowed)

  1. To recede and advance.
    • As true we are as flesh and blood can be: / The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his facec. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  2. (figuratively) To wax and wane.
    • The quality of his service game varied as the contest ebbed and flowed, but landing 54% of his first serves over the whole match was a telling statistic.2025 June 8, Jonathan Jurejko, “Alcaraz stuns Sinner in extraordinary French Open final”, in BBC

See all 4 meanings of ebb and flow

Questions about ebbed and flowed

What is ebbed and flowed the simple past and past participle of?
Ebbed and flowed is the simple past and past participle of ebb and flow.

Words near ebbed and flowed in the dictionary

  1. ebb tide
  2. ebb tides
  3. Ebbage
  4. ebbe
  5. ebbed
  6. ebbed and flowed
  7. Ebben
  8. Ebbens
  9. ebber
  10. ebberman
  11. ebbermen

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ebbed and flowed (page history and authors); ebb and flow (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.

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Cite this entry: “ebbed and flowed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ebbed_and_flowed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.