Past tense of slay
irregular verb
The past tense of slay is slew or slayed. The past participle is slain or slayed.
Forms of slay
| Base form (V1) | slay /sleɪ/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | slew /sl(j)uː/ slayed |
| Past participle (V3) | slain /sleɪ̯n/ slayed |
| Present participle | slaying /ˈsleɪ.ɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | slays |
Slew and slayed in a sentence
- The knight slew the dragon.
- Our foes must all be slain.
- She has a slew of papers and notebooks strewn all over her desk.From the entry slew
- Most of us have a slew of good reasons for fearing people.2022, Devon Price, chapter 7, in Michele Eniclerico, editor, Unmasking Autism, New York: Harmony Books, →ISBN, page 204. From the entry neg
- There has been a slew of documents about Scottish transport planning in recent weeks.2021 February 24, Philip Haigh, “A shift from cars: Scotland's railways are friends of electric!”, in RAIL, number 915, page 30. From the entry slew
Meaning of slay
- verb To kill; to murder.
- verb To eradicate or stamp out.
- verb To defeat; to overcome (in a competition or contest).
Verbs like slay
Questions about the past tense of slay
- What is the past tense of slay?
- The past tense of slay is slew or slayed.
- What is the past participle of slay?
- The past participle of slay is slain or slayed.
- Is slay a regular or irregular verb?
- Slay is an irregular verb: its past tense is not formed with -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: slay (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 slay.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/slay. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.