Past tense of barb
regular verb
The past tense of barb is barbed. The past participle is also barbed.
Forms of barb
| Base form (V1) | barb /bɑː(ɹ)b/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | barbed /bɑː(ɹ)bd/ |
| Past participle (V3) | barbed /bɑː(ɹ)bd/ |
| Present participle | barbing |
| Third person singular | barbs |
Barbed in a sentence
- Her coat was a tangled mass, barbed with last year's burs, matted disgustingly with cow dung.1944, Emily Carr, “Meg the Worker”, in The House of All Sorts
- The rancher used staples to attach the barbed wire to the fence posts.From the entry staple
- He fumbled at the dart but the needle was barbed and wouldn't come out.2008, Charlotte Boyett-Compo, In the Arms of the Wind, page 144. From the entry tranq
- "No, this was more a night of bellowed barbed badinage, boisterous BS, outrageous declamations and defiant roars."2005 October 31, The Times, London. From the entry badinage
- When barbed and seeded proper the barbs or leaves are green and the seeds yellow.1968, Charles MacKinnon of Dunakin, The Observer's Book of Heraldry, pages 72–73. From the entry seeded
Meaning of barb
- noun The point that stands backward in an arrow, fishhook, etc., to prevent it from being easily extracted. Hence: Anything which stands out with a sharp point obliquely or crosswise to something else.
- noun A hurtful or disparaging remark.
- noun A beard, or that which resembles it, or grows in the place of it.
Questions about the past tense of barb
- What is the past tense of barb?
- The past tense of barb is barbed.
- What is the past participle of barb?
- The past participle of barb is barbed.
- Is barb a regular or irregular verb?
- Barb is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: barb (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 barb.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/barb. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.