Past tense of activate
regular verb
The past tense of activate is activated. The past participle is also activated.
Forms of activate
| Base form (V1) | activate /ˈæktɪˌveɪt/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | activated |
| Past participle (V3) | activated |
| Present participle | activating |
| Third person singular | activates |
Activated in a sentence
- The pranksters activated the fire alarm by spraying deodorant next to it.
- A new squadron was activated.
- The machinery, when activated, would create atemporal bubbles wherein nothing was affected by the flow of time.From the entry atemporal
- His trip of the switch activated the mechanism.From the entry trip
- Filamentous bacteria may cause the bulking of activated sludge.From the entry bulking
Meaning of activate
- verb To encourage development or induce increased activity; to stimulate.
- verb To put a device, mechanism (alarm etc.) or system into action or motion; to trigger, to actuate, to set off, to enable.
- verb To render more reactive; excite.
Questions about the past tense of activate
- What is the past tense of activate?
- The past tense of activate is activated.
- What is the past participle of activate?
- The past participle of activate is activated.
- Is activate a regular or irregular verb?
- Activate is a regular verb: its past tense adds -d.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: activate (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 activate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/activate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.