Past tense of tread
irregular verb
The past tense of tread is trod, tread or treaded. The past participle is trodden, trod or tread.
Forms of tread
| Base form (V1) | tread /tɹɛd/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | trod /tɹɒd/ tread /tɹɛd/ treaded |
| Past participle (V3) | trodden /ˈtɹɒ.dən/ trod /tɹɒd/ tread /tɹɛd/ |
| Present participle | treading |
| Third person singular | treads |
Trod and treaded in a sentence
- He trod back and forth wearily.
- to tread a path; to tread land when too light; a well-trodden path
- He seems to think that he's the greatest actor who's ever trod the boards.From the entry tread the boards
- The great clod trod heavily on my toes!From the entry heavily
- We trod out across fragile alpine heath between poa tussocks and something that smelled of lemon thyme.2004, Nicholas Shakespeare, In Tasmania, Harvill Press, p. 74. From the entry poa
Meaning of tread
- verb To step or walk (on or across something); to trample.
- verb To step or walk upon.
- verb To proceed, to behave (in a certain manner).
Verbs like tread
- understand (understood)
- stand (stood)
- withstand (withstood)
- misunderstand (misunderstood)
Questions about the past tense of tread
- What is the past tense of tread?
- The past tense of tread is trod, tread or treaded.
- What is the past participle of tread?
- The past participle of tread is trodden, trod or tread.
- Is tread a regular or irregular verb?
- Tread is an irregular verb: its past tense is not formed with -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tread (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 tread.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/tread. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.