Past tense of leave
irregular verb
The past tense of leave is left. The past participle is also left.
Forms of leave
| Base form (V1) | leave /ˈliːv/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | left /ˈlɛft/ |
| Past participle (V3) | left /ˈlɛft/ |
| Present participle | leaving /ˈliːvɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | leaves /ˈliːvz/ |
Past tense of leave by meaning
- to cause or allow (something) to remain as available; to refrain from taking (something)...: left
- to give leave to; allow; permit; let; grant.: leaved or left
Left in a sentence
- I left my car at home and took a bus to work.
- There's not much food left. We'd better go to the shops.
- I managed to murmur some words of consolation as I left the funeral.From the entry word
- We still have a couple hours left to do in the yard.From the entry hour
- Since he left her, she's suing him for divorce on grounds of abandonment.From the entry abandonment
Meaning of leave
- verb To cause or allow (something) to remain as available; to refrain from taking (something) away; to stop short of consuming or otherwise depleting (something) entirely.
- verb To cause, to result in.
- verb To put; to place; to deposit; to deliver, with a sense of withdrawing oneself.
Questions about the past tense of leave
- What is the past tense of leave?
- The past tense of leave is left.
- What is the past participle of leave?
- The past participle of leave is left.
- Is leave a regular or irregular verb?
- Leave is an irregular verb: its past tense is not formed with -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: leave (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 leave.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/leave. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.