Past tense of tan
regular verb
The past tense of tan is tanned. The past participle is also tanned.
Forms of tan
| Base form (V1) | tan /tæn/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | tanned /tænd/ |
| Past participle (V3) | tanned /tænd/ |
| Present participle | tanning /ˈtænɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | tans |
Tanned in a sentence
- I wouldn't say that she was tanned, but there was a certain tannishness about her.From the entry tannishness
- I'd go with friends, we'd play loud music, lift weights and get tanned.2021 August 22, Michael Segalov, quoting Joel Dommett, “Sunday with Joel Dommett: ‘In bed until 10am if I'm feeling fruity'”, in The…. From the entry box
- Much of this means looking hairier, more tanned and visibly older.2021 November 22, Stephen Yang, “Yassification: Contestation of the Extremes and the Binaries”, in The Cornell Daily Sun, Ithaca, N.Y.…. From the entry yassify
- She stands and stretches again, flashing her tanned midriff and her belly ring as her T-shirt lifts.2010, Rebecca James, Beautiful Malice, Bantam Books, published 2010, →ISBN, page 54. From the entry belly ring
- Calf heads were tanned from yearling calves less than a year in age.2001, ed. Rob Cook, The Making of a Drum Company, Hal Leonard, published 2001, page 53. From the entry slunk
Meaning of tan
- noun A light, brown-like colour.
- noun A darkening of the skin resulting from exposure to sunlight or similar light sources.
- noun The bark of an oak or other tree from which tannic acid is obtained.
Questions about the past tense of tan
- What is the past tense of tan?
- The past tense of tan is tanned.
- What is the past participle of tan?
- The past participle of tan is tanned.
- Is tan a regular or irregular verb?
- Tan is a regular verb: its past tense doubles the last letter and adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tan (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 tan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/tan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.