Past tense of overlay
irregular verb
The past tense of overlay is overlaid or overlayed. The past participle is also overlaid or overlayed.
Forms of overlay
| Base form (V1) | overlay /ˌəʊ.vəˈleɪ/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | overlaid /oʊ.vɚ.leɪd/ overlayed |
| Past participle (V3) | overlaid /oʊ.vɚ.leɪd/ overlayed |
| Present participle | overlaying |
| Third person singular | overlays |
Overlaid and overlayed in a sentence
- The hillside at this point is composed of shaly rock overlaid with a peaty loam which carries a growth of heather, and its unstable condition has resulted in two landslides in the course of the railway's history.1943 March and April, “A British Avalanche Shelter”, in Railway Magazine, page 80
- Prostitutes, thieves, girls who ‘overlaid’ their babies, abortionists who stuck their knitting needles into something vital – did they really need to be here?1993, Pat Barker, The Eye in the Door (The Regeneration Trilogy), Penguin, published 2014, page 371
- The microstromatolites and the surrounding basalt were overlaid by fungal cells and hyphae.2015 October 22, “A Fungal-Prokaryotic Consortium at the Basalt-Zeolite Interface in Subseafloor Igneous Crust”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI. From the entry microstromatolites
- In both middens, the shell layers were underlaid and overlaid by nonshell cultural deposits.2002, Peter N. Peregrine, Melvin Ember, Encyclopedia of prehistory, Volume 3. From the entry nonshell
- First a map of the world appeared in greens and blues on the screen, overlaid with lines of latitude and longitude.2009, Don Pendleton, Interception, page 69. From the entry cyberwizard
Meaning of overlay
- verb To lay, spread, or apply (something) over or across (something else); to overspread.
- verb To overwhelm; to press excessively upon.
- verb To lie over (someone, especially a child) in order to smother it; to suffocate.
Verbs like overlay
Questions about the past tense of overlay
- What is the past tense of overlay?
- The past tense of overlay is overlaid or overlayed.
- What is the past participle of overlay?
- The past participle of overlay is overlaid or overlayed.
- Is overlay a regular or irregular verb?
- Overlay is an irregular verb: its past tense is not formed with -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: overlay (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 overlay.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/overlay. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.