Past tense of dab
regular verb
The past tense of dab is dabbed. The past participle is also dabbed.
Forms of dab
| Base form (V1) | dab /dæb/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | dabbed /dæbd/ |
| Past participle (V3) | dabbed /dæbd/ |
| Present participle | dabbing /ˈdæbɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | dabs /dæbz/ |
Dabbed in a sentence
- I dabbed my face with a towel.
- Breach hit a line, Zoe Harrison dabbed a kick in behind and Abby Dow chased like fury.2025 August 22, Mike Henson, “England open World Cup with 11-try win over USA”, in BBC Sport
- He melted a glue stick with a cigarette lighter and dabbed it onto his project with a toothpick.From the entry glue stick
- But I waited while he dabbed at the cut with styptic powder.1959, Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon. From the entry styptic
- She dabbed a French fried potato in a glob of catsup, but stopped midway, placing it on her plate again.1988, Paula Williams, Lovesong, Pageant Books, →ISBN, page 146. From the entry french fried potato
Meaning of dab
- verb To press lightly in a repetitive motion with a soft object without rubbing.
- verb To apply a substance in this way.
- verb To strike by a thrust; to hit with a sudden blow or thrust.
Questions about the past tense of dab
- What is the past tense of dab?
- The past tense of dab is dabbed.
- What is the past participle of dab?
- The past participle of dab is dabbed.
- Is dab a regular or irregular verb?
- Dab is a regular verb: its past tense doubles the last letter and adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dab (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 dab.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/dab. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.