Past tense of sustain
regular verb
The past tense of sustain is sustained. The past participle is also sustained.
Forms of sustain
| Base form (V1) | sustain /səˈsteɪn/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | sustained /səˈsteɪnd/ |
| Past participle (V3) | sustained /səˈsteɪnd/ |
| Present participle | sustaining |
| Third person singular | sustains |
Sustained in a sentence
- The city came under sustained attack by enemy forces.
- We rode five farsakhs today, sustained by a single bowl of curds and tortured by the wooden saddles.1937, Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana, London: Macmillan, Part 2, page 59
- The passenger sustained a severe injury in the car accident.From the entry injury
- I've sustained some front-end damage after running into a pothole.From the entry run into
- The damage sustained in the fire is so great that the whole building will have to come down.From the entry come down
Meaning of sustain
- verb To maintain, or keep in existence.
- verb To provide for or nourish.
- verb To encourage or sanction (something).
Questions about the past tense of sustain
- What is the past tense of sustain?
- The past tense of sustain is sustained.
- What is the past participle of sustain?
- The past participle of sustain is sustained.
- Is sustain a regular or irregular verb?
- Sustain is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sustain (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 sustain.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/sustain. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.