Past tense of drill
regular verb
The past tense of drill is drilled. The past participle is also drilled.
Forms of drill
| Base form (V1) | drill /dɹɪl/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | drilled /dɹɪld/ |
| Past participle (V3) | drilled /dɹɪld/ |
| Present participle | drilling /ˈdɹɪlɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | drills /dɹɪlz/ |
Drilled in a sentence
- They drilled daily to learn the routine exactly.
- Moses wasn’t overly drilled, just told he would be playing right wing-back, that Conte had seen enough to know.2017 May 13, Barney Ronay, “Antonio Conte’s brilliance has turned Chelsea’s pop-up team into champions”, in the Guardian
- The issue can be drilled down to a simple yes or no.From the entry drill down
- Under his parents' supervision he drilled the holes in the wood.From the entry supervision
- We drilled a hole and then cut the threads with the proper tap to match the valve’s thread.From the entry tap
Meaning of drill
- verb To create (a hole) by removing material with a drill (tool).
- verb To practice, especially in (or as in) a military context.
- verb To cause to drill (practice); to train, especially in military arts.
Questions about the past tense of drill
- What is the past tense of drill?
- The past tense of drill is drilled.
- What is the past participle of drill?
- The past participle of drill is drilled.
- Is drill a regular or irregular verb?
- Drill is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: drill (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 drill.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/drill. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.