Past tense of owe
regular verb
The past tense of owe is owed. The past participle is also owed.
Forms of owe
| Base form (V1) | owe /əʊ/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | owed /oʊd/ |
| Past participle (V3) | owed /oʊd/ |
| Present participle | owing /ˈəʊ.ɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | owes |
Owed in a sentence
- It was a surprise to find out I owed twice as much as I thought.From the entry surprise
- Imagine my surprise on learning I owed twice as much as I thought I did.From the entry surprise
- He's owed it to us for six months, but it doesn't look very collectible to me.From the entry collectible
- He paid back all the money he owed her, with interest.From the entry pay back
- Never was so much owed by so many to so few.From the entry so many
Meaning of owe
- verb To be under an obligation to give something back to someone or to perform some action for someone.
- verb To have debt; to be in debt.
- verb To have as a cause; used with to.
Questions about the past tense of owe
- What is the past tense of owe?
- The past tense of owe is owed.
- What is the past participle of owe?
- The past participle of owe is owed.
- Is owe a regular or irregular verb?
- Owe is a regular verb: its past tense adds -d.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: owe (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 owe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/owe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.