Past tense of ken
regular verb
The past tense of ken is kenned or kent. The past participle is also kenned or kent.
Forms of ken
| Base form (V1) | ken /kɛn/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | kenned kent /kɛnt/ |
| Past participle (V3) | kenned kent /kɛnt/ |
| Present participle | kenning /ˈkɛnɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | kens |
Kenned and kent in a sentence
- It was noted by them that kenned best that her cantrips were at their worst when the tides in the Sker Bay ebbed between the hours of twelve and one.1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide
- Johnny kenned at once the coarse brute was drunk same as father was Friday nights when he got his money from the Broo.193?, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, ‘Forsaken’, Smeddum, Canongate 2001. From the entry buroo
- He kenned not whether it was devil or mortal, but flung himself on the roadside and lay like a corp for an hour or more, till the rain aroused him.1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide. From the entry arouse
- Kent couldn't have made it any clearer that the road to anything more than fakeship was closed.2017, Sonya Weiss, Wedding Date Rescue. From the entry fakeship
- KENT NELSON —Until my wife Inza convinced me there was more to life.February 2012, Thomas Pugsley, Denial (episode) in Young Justice (TV series). From the entry pistol
Meaning of ken
- verb To give birth, conceive, beget, be born; to develop (as a fetus); to nourish, sustain (as life).
- verb To know, perceive or understand.
- verb To discover by sight; to catch sight of; to descry.
Questions about the past tense of ken
- What is the past tense of ken?
- The past tense of ken is kenned or kent.
- What is the past participle of ken?
- The past participle of ken is kenned or kent.
- Is ken a regular or irregular verb?
- Ken is a regular verb: its past tense doubles the last letter and adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ken (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 ken.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/ken. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.