Past tense of swallow

regular verb

The past tense of swallow is swallowed. The past participle is also swallowed.

Forms of swallow

Clothes are to be worn and food is to be swallowed: they remain trapped in the physical world.2011 April 21, Jonathan Jones, The Guardian
His body, like so many others swallowed by the ocean's hungry maw, was never found.2010 October 28, “What are the wild waves saying”, in The Economist
The first time he chewed tobacco, he swallowed his chew and got extremely sick.From the entry chew
The dog chomped on the treat and swallowed it in one gulp.From the entry chomp
He swallowed a mouthful of sea water when he fell in.From the entry mouthful

verb To cause (food, drink etc.) to pass from the mouth into the stomach; to take into the stomach through the throat.
verb To take (something) in so that it disappears; to consume, absorb.
verb To take food down into the stomach; to make the muscular contractions of the oesophagus to achieve this, often taken as a sign of nervousness or strong emotion.

What is the past tense of swallow?: The past tense of swallow is swallowed.
What is the past participle of swallow?: The past participle of swallow is swallowed.
Is swallow a regular or irregular verb?: Swallow is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.

Adapted from Wiktionary: swallow (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: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “Past tense of swallow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/swallow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.