Past tense of abstain
regular verb
The past tense of abstain is abstained. The past participle is also abstained.
Forms of abstain
| Base form (V1) | abstain /əbˈsteɪn/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | abstained |
| Past participle (V3) | abstained |
| Present participle | abstaining |
| Third person singular | abstains |
Abstained in a sentence
- For quotations using this term, see Citations:abstained.From the entry abstained
- Hooverizers abstained from certain foods on one or two days of the week; for example, wheatless Mondays and porkless Thursdays and Saturdays.2005, Rosemarie Ostler, Dewdroppers, Waldos, and Slackers: A Decade-by-Decade Guide to the Vanishing Vocabulary of the Twentieth Century…. From the entry Hooverizer
- T abstained from the "Wolf of Wall Street"-esque extracurriculars on grounds that he didn't agree with Cubik Partners' definition of "fun," per his testimony in court.2022 November 25, B. Cost, “Man wins legal right to be 'boring' at work, gets $3K from company”, in New York Post, NYP Holdings, archived…. From the entry -esque
Meaning of abstain
- verb Keep or withhold oneself.
- verb Refrain from (something or doing something); keep from doing, especially an indulgence.
- verb To refrain from drinking alcohol.
Questions about the past tense of abstain
- What is the past tense of abstain?
- The past tense of abstain is abstained.
- What is the past participle of abstain?
- The past participle of abstain is abstained.
- Is abstain a regular or irregular verb?
- Abstain is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: abstain (page history and authors) and the entries of its forms. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws left out forms marked obsolete, archaic, rare or dialectal and added the examples. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “Past tense of abstain.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/abstain. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.