Past tense of refrain
regular verb
The past tense of refrain is refrained. The past participle is also refrained.
Forms of refrain
| Base form (V1) | refrain /ɹɪˈfɹeɪn/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | refrained |
| Past participle (V3) | refrained |
| Present participle | refraining |
| Third person singular | refrains |
Refrained in a sentence
- With his stock rising fast in the party, the governor has conspicuously refrained from saying he would stand aside if Mr.2022 January 17, Jonathan Martin, Maggie Haberman, “Who Is King of Florida? Tensions Rise Between Trump and a Former Acolyte.”, in The New…. From the entry stock
- I wanted to scratch it, but refrained.2021, Alexander Lobrano, My Place at the Table: A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris, Rux Martin/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page…. From the entry hive
- He’d for the most part refrained from any dramatic concurrences or dissents—as though keeping his powder dry for Burwell v.2014 July 1, Noah Feldman, “Alito's Day in Court”, in BloombergView, archived from the original on 25 Aug 2014. From the entry keep one's powder dry
- The men begged him to decimate them instead, and Caesar relented in the same way that Titus refrained from executing this cavalryman after his comrades’ appeal.1998, Adrian Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War, page 263. From the entry decimate
Meaning of refrain
- verb To hold back, to restrain (someone or something).
- verb To show restraint; to hold oneself back.
- verb To repress (a desire, emotion etc.); to check or curb.
Questions about the past tense of refrain
- What is the past tense of refrain?
- The past tense of refrain is refrained.
- What is the past participle of refrain?
- The past participle of refrain is refrained.
- Is refrain a regular or irregular verb?
- Refrain is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: refrain (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.
Last updated:
Cite this page: “Past tense of refrain.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/refrain. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.