Past tense of bow
regular verb
The past tense of bow is bowed. The past participle is also bowed.
Forms of bow
| Base form (V1) | bow /ˈbəʊ̯/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | bowed /baʊd/ |
| Past participle (V3) | bowed /baʊd/ |
| Present participle | bowing /ˈbaʊɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | bows /baʊz/ |
Bowed in a sentence
- The musician bowed his violin expertly.
- The shelf bowed under the weight of the books.
- Jane had a long spell as chairman, but bowed out after she had a child.From the entry bow out
- He bowed his head in gratitude to the donors.From the entry gratitude
- The old man bowed his hoary head in acquiescence.From the entry hoary
Meaning of bow
- noun A weapon made of a curved piece of wood or other flexible material whose ends are connected by a string, used for shooting arrows.
- noun A curved bend in a rod or planar surface, or in a linear formation such as a river (see oxbow).
- noun A rod with horsehair (or an artificial substitute) stretched between the ends, used for playing various stringed musical instruments.
Questions about the past tense of bow
- What is the past tense of bow?
- The past tense of bow is bowed.
- What is the past participle of bow?
- The past participle of bow is bowed.
- Is bow a regular or irregular verb?
- Bow is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bow (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 bow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/bow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.