Word.ws English Dictionary

had to

had to is the simple past and past participle of have to.

Meaning of have to

Verb

have to (third-person singular simple present has to, present participle having to, simple past and past participle had to)

  1. Must; need to; to be urged to; to be required to; indicates obligation.
    • You have to wear a seat belt.
  2. Must; expresses a logical conclusion.
    • that has to be the postman; it has to be an electrical fault
    Synonyms:
    be bound to, have got to, got to, gotta, must

Questions about had to

What is had to the simple past and past participle of?
Had to is the simple past and past participle of have to.

Words near had to in the dictionary

  1. had the world on a string
  2. had tickets on oneself
  3. had time
  4. had time on one's hands
  5. had time on one's side
  6. had to
  7. had to say for oneself
  8. had truck with
  9. had up
  10. had Van Gogh's ear for music
  11. had way

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: had to (page history and authors); have to (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: “had to.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/had_to. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.