Past tense of burn
regular verb
The past tense of burn is burned or burnt. The past participle is also burned or burnt.
Forms of burn
| Base form (V1) | burn /bɜːn/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | burned /ˈbɜːnd/ burnt /bɜːnt/ |
| Past participle (V3) | burned /ˈbɜːnd/ burnt /bɜːnt/ |
| Present participle | burning /ˈbɝnɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | burns /bɜːnz/ |
Burned and burnt in a sentence
- He burnt his hand with acid.
- The grill was too hot and the steak burned.
- He forgot that the frying pan was hot and burned his hand.From the entry hot
- There was a fire at the school last night and the whole place burned down.From the entry fire
- I burned three tanks of gas on the drive to New York.From the entry tank
Meaning of burn
- noun A physical injury caused by heat, cold, electricity, radiation or caustic chemicals.
- noun A mark left behind by a burn; a scorch or scar caused by a burn.
- noun An abrasion resembling a burn.
Questions about the past tense of burn
- What is the past tense of burn?
- The past tense of burn is burned or burnt.
- What is the past participle of burn?
- The past participle of burn is burned or burnt.
- Is burn a regular or irregular verb?
- Burn is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: burn (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 burn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/burn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.