Past tense of buy
irregular verb
The past tense of buy is bought. The past participle is also bought.
Forms of buy
| Base form (V1) | buy /baɪ/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | bought /ˈbɔːt/ |
| Past participle (V3) | bought /ˈbɔːt/ |
| Present participle | buying /ˈbaɪ.ɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | buys /baɪz/ |
Less standard forms: boughten (dialectal).
Bought in a sentence
- Who'd Father buy the car for? He bought it for me, not for you.
- I've bought material comfort by foregoing my dreams.
- I bought a few beers from the shop for the party.From the entry beer
- They bought a bolt of the finest Italian that can be had this side of Italy.From the entry Italian
- This counterfeit watch looks like the real thing, but it broke a week after I bought it.From the entry counterfeit
Meaning of buy
- verb To obtain (something) in exchange for money or goods.
- verb To obtain, especially by some sacrifice.
- verb To suffer consequences for (something) through being deprived of something; to pay for (something one has done).
Verbs like buy
Questions about the past tense of buy
- What is the past tense of buy?
- The past tense of buy is bought.
- What is the past participle of buy?
- The past participle of buy is bought.
- Is buy a regular or irregular verb?
- Buy is an irregular verb: its past tense is not formed with -ed.
- Is boughten correct?
- boughten is marked dialectal in Wiktionary. The usual past tense of buy is bought.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: buy (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 buy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/buy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.