Past tense of distinguish
regular verb
The past tense of distinguish is distinguished. The past participle is also distinguished.
Forms of distinguish
| Base form (V1) | distinguish /dɪˈstɪŋ.ɡwɪʃ/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | distinguished /dɪˈstɪŋ.ɡwɪʃt/ |
| Past participle (V3) | distinguished /dɪˈstɪŋ.ɡwɪʃt/ |
| Present participle | distinguishing |
| Third person singular | distinguishes |
Distinguished in a sentence
- It had begun to take a leading place even in the days of the Ptolemies, and in scientific, as distinguished from purely literary work, it had assumed a position of primary importance early in the Christian era.1922, De Lacy O'Leary, Arabic Thought and Its Place in History
- The physics of elementary particles in the 20th century was distinguished by the observation of particles whose existence had been predicted by theorists sometimes decades earlier.2012 March-April, Jeremy Bernstein, “A Palette of Particles”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 146
- Hard k, t, s, ch, as distinguished from soft, g, d, z, j.From the entry hard
- It was only posthumously that Julian was distinguished with the eponym "Apostate".From the entry eponym
- Let X be a topological space with a distinguished point p.From the entry distinguished
Meaning of distinguish
- verb To recognize someone or something as different from others based on its characteristics.
- verb To see someone or something clearly or distinctly.
- verb To make noticeably different or better from others through accomplishments.
Questions about the past tense of distinguish
- What is the past tense of distinguish?
- The past tense of distinguish is distinguished.
- What is the past participle of distinguish?
- The past participle of distinguish is distinguished.
- Is distinguish a regular or irregular verb?
- Distinguish is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: distinguish (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 distinguish.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/distinguish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
