Past tense of see
irregular verb
The past tense of see is saw. The past participle is seen.
Forms of see
| Base form (V1) | see /siː/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | saw /sɔː/ |
| Past participle (V3) | seen /siːn/ |
| Present participle | seeing /ˈsiː.ɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | sees /siːz/ |
Less standard forms: seent (dialectal), seed (dialectal), sawn (dialectal).
Saw and seen in a sentence
- 'Twas the house I'd seen the roof of from the beach.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 18
- Now I've seen it all!
- I did a take when I saw the new car in the driveway.From the entry take
- I just saw the video where he opens the door and gets the surprise! LOL!From the entry lol
- We saw lots of cows at the farm show, including some surprisingly gigantic bulls.From the entry cow
Meaning of see
- verb To perceive or detect someone or something with the eyes, or as if by sight.
- verb To witness or observe by personal experience.
- verb To watch (a movie) at a cinema, or a show on television etc.
Verbs like see
Questions about the past tense of see
- What is the past tense of see?
- The past tense of see is saw.
- What is the past participle of see?
- The past participle of see is seen.
- Is see a regular or irregular verb?
- See is an irregular verb: its past tense is not formed with -ed.
- Is seent correct?
- seent is marked dialectal in Wiktionary. The usual past tense of see is saw.
- Is seed correct?
- seed is marked dialectal in Wiktionary. The usual past tense of see is saw.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: see (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 see.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/see. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.