Past tense of begin
irregular verb
The past tense of begin is began. The past participle is begun.
Forms of begin
| Base form (V1) | begin /bɪˈɡɪn/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | began /bɪˈɡæn/ |
| Past participle (V3) | begun /bɪˈɡʌn/ |
| Present participle | beginning /bɪˈɡɪn.ɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | begins /bɪˈɡɪnz/ |
Began and begun in a sentence
- I began playing the piano at the age of five.
- I rushed to get to class on time, but the lesson had already begun.
- She opened the book to page 37 and began to read aloud.From the entry book
- The artist took out her colors and began work on a landscape.From the entry color
- The car began to accelerate as soon as the light turned green.From the entry accelerate
Meaning of begin
- verb To start, to initiate or take the first step into something.
- verb To come into existence.
- noun Beginning; start.
Verbs like begin
Questions about the past tense of begin
- What is the past tense of begin?
- The past tense of begin is began.
- What is the past participle of begin?
- The past participle of begin is begun.
- Is begin a regular or irregular verb?
- Begin is an irregular verb: its past tense is not formed with -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: begin (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 begin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/begin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.