Past tense of borrow
regular verb
The past tense of borrow is borrowed. The past participle is also borrowed.
Forms of borrow
| Base form (V1) | borrow /ˈbɒɹəʊ/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | borrowed /ˈbɒɹəʊd/ |
| Past participle (V3) | borrowed /ˈbɒɹəʊd/ |
| Present participle | borrowing /ˈbɔrəwɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | borrows |
Borrowed in a sentence
- Americans, for example, call newcomers to Antarctica “fingies”, which comes from FNGs – a borrowed military abbreviation that means “Fucking New Guy”.2024 June 20, Eva Corlett, “Fidlets, fingies and riding a doo: study sheds light on Antarctic English slang”, in The Guardian
- My folks couldn't afford a guitar, so my dad borrowed me a mandolin one time, and I was just learning to play it pretty good and the guy that he borrowed it from wanted it back.1999 August 1, “Ronnie Dawson, Singer, Comments on his Career and Music”, in NPR_Weekend
- Chinese has borrowed several words from English, but it does not have a genetic relationship to English.From the entry genetic
- My laptop has been behaving erratically ever since you borrowed it.From the entry behave
- Having survived when many others died, she decided to make good use of her borrowed time.From the entry borrowed time
Meaning of borrow
- verb To receive (something) from somebody temporarily, expecting to return it.
- verb To receive money from a bank or other lender under the agreement that the lender will be paid back over time.
- verb To adopt (an idea) as one's own.
Questions about the past tense of borrow
- What is the past tense of borrow?
- The past tense of borrow is borrowed.
- What is the past participle of borrow?
- The past participle of borrow is borrowed.
- Is borrow a regular or irregular verb?
- Borrow is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: borrow (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 borrow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/borrow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.