Past tense of spare
regular verb
The past tense of spare is spared. The past participle is also spared.
Forms of spare
| Base form (V1) | spare /spɛə(ɹ)/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | spared /ˈspɛɹd/ |
| Past participle (V3) | spared /ˈspɛɹd/ |
| Present participle | sparing /ˈspɛəɹɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | spares |
Spared in a sentence
- Cologne Hauptbahnhof is reached in the small hours, and the traveller new to postwar Germany is spared the sight of the devastated city.1949 September and October, “The "Nord Express"”, in Railway Magazine, page 336
- After 19 years on death row in Missouri for the murder of two young women, he has been granted a final opportunity to persuade a judge that he should be spared execution by lethal injection.2012 August 21, Ed Pilkington, “Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die?”, in The Guardian
- No expense was spared in making it a princely residence.From the entry princely
- Trump hinted that Britain might be spared tariffs, saying: “I think that one can be worked out”.2025 February 3, Tom Phillips, Richard Partington, quoting Donald Trump, “Trump agrees to pause Mexico tariffs as shares tumble over trade…. From the entry work out
- Höss, a man of schizophrenic sensibility, preferred gassing to shooting because he was “spared all these bloodbaths.”1975, Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-1945. From the entry schizophrenic
Meaning of spare
- adjective Being more than what is necessary, or what must be used or reserved; not wanted, or not used; superfluous.
- adjective Held in reserve, to be used in an emergency.
- adjective Not occupied or in current use.
Questions about the past tense of spare
- What is the past tense of spare?
- The past tense of spare is spared.
- What is the past participle of spare?
- The past participle of spare is spared.
- Is spare a regular or irregular verb?
- Spare is a regular verb: its past tense adds -d.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: spare (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 spare.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/spare. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.