Past tense of swim
irregular verb
The past tense of swim is swam. The past participle is swum.
Forms of swim
| Base form (V1) | swim /swɪm/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | swam /swæm/ |
| Past participle (V3) | swum /swʌm/ |
| Present participle | swimming /ˈswɪmɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | swims |
Swam and swum in a sentence
- Half of the guinea pigs were swum daily.
- The eight-tentacled octopus swam through the water.From the entry tentacled
- He was aiming to get into the school swimming team, and to that end he swam every evening.From the entry to that end
- "When I was growing up, my parents threw me into swim practice and I swam every day.2021 September 15, Laura Brehaut, “Cook this: Lazy pierogies with wild mushrooms, cabbage and prunes from Let's Do Dinner”, in National Post. From the entry leniwe
- He swam a few strokes and then sat on a rock to dry out.2017, Peter Stamm, translated by Michael Hofmann, To the Back of Beyond, New York, N.Y.: Other Press, →ISBN, page 114. From the entry pack lunch
Meaning of swim
- verb To move through the water, without touching the bottom; to propel oneself in water by natural means.
- verb To become immersed in, or as if in, or flooded with, or as if with, a liquid.
- verb To move around freely because of excess space.
Questions about the past tense of swim
- What is the past tense of swim?
- The past tense of swim is swam.
- What is the past participle of swim?
- The past participle of swim is swum.
- Is swim a regular or irregular verb?
- Swim is an irregular verb: its past tense is not formed with -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: swim (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 swim.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/swim. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.