Past tense of wail
regular verb
The past tense of wail is wailed. The past participle is also wailed.
Forms of wail
| Base form (V1) | wail /weɪl/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | wailed |
| Past participle (V3) | wailed |
| Present participle | wailing /ˈweɪlɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | wails |
Wailed in a sentence
- The wind wailed and the rain streamed down.
- On being asked what was wrong, I apparently wailed “I’m schoolsick!2020, Nina Ann Smith, It's Odd, The Things One Remembers, FriesenPress, page 17. From the entry schoolsick
- He shoved Jessie off but Jessie came back and wailed on him something harsh.2017, Tanya Reimer, Cursed on the Prairies: a Sacred Land Story. From the entry wail on
- A siren wailed in the distance, the high-pitched howl of Boston Medical Center's go team.2014, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Truth Be Told: A Jane Ryland Novel, →ISBN. From the entry go team
- But still he wailed, and kicked with his legs, and refused to be comforted.1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC. From the entry smell
Meaning of wail
- verb To cry out, as in sorrow or anguish.
- verb To weep, lament persistently or bitterly.
- verb To make a noise like mourning or crying.
Questions about the past tense of wail
- What is the past tense of wail?
- The past tense of wail is wailed.
- What is the past participle of wail?
- The past participle of wail is wailed.
- Is wail a regular or irregular verb?
- Wail is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wail (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 wail.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/wail. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.