Past tense of tense
regular verb
The past tense of tense is tensed. The past participle is also tensed.
Forms of tense
| Base form (V1) | tense /tɛns/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | tensed |
| Past participle (V3) | tensed |
| Present participle | tensing |
| Third person singular | tenses /tɛnsɪz/ |
Tensed in a sentence
- The driver and the man shouted angrily at each other and I tensed, ready for violence.1983 December 24, Andrea Loewenstein, “"What's Freedom Without Food In Your Stomach?" — A Trip to Haiti”, in Gay Community News, volume 11...
- "Helene," he croaked, reaching out his arms—his voice tensed with the infinity of his desire.2022 September 16, Stephen Leacock, Further Foolishness, DigiCat. From the entry hoarse
- She tensed like a snow leopardess preparing to leap on her prey.1998 March, James Axler [pseudonym; Mark Ellis], Omega Path (Outlanders; 4), Don Mills, Ont.: Gold Eagle Books, Worldwide Library, page 190. From the entry snow leopardess
- A verb like said or believed takes a subordinator following it; and a subordinator takes a tensed verb following it.2025, Edward A. F. Gibson, “Dependency Grammar” (chapter 3), in Syntax: A Cognitive Approach, MIT Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 81. From the entry subordinator
- About 14 per cent of us lack a muscle called the palmaris longus, which helps to keep the palm tensed.2019, Bill Bryson, The Body: A Guide for Occupants, Black Swan (2020), page 197. From the entry palmaris longus
Meaning of tense
- noun The property of indicating the point in time at which an action or state of being occurs or exists.
- noun An inflected form of a verb that indicates tense.
- noun A grammatical aspect.
Questions about the past tense of tense
- What is the past tense of tense?
- The past tense of tense is tensed.
- What is the past participle of tense?
- The past participle of tense is tensed.
- Is tense a regular or irregular verb?
- Tense is a regular verb: its past tense adds -d.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tense (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 tense.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/tense. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.