Past tense of wreak
regular verb
The past tense of wreak is wreaked. The past participle is also wreaked.
Forms of wreak
| Base form (V1) | wreak /ɹiːk/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | wreaked |
| Past participle (V3) | wreaked |
| Present participle | wreaking |
| Third person singular | wreaks |
Less standard forms: wrought (nonstandard).
Wreaked in a sentence
- The earthquake wreaked havoc in the city.
- She wreaked her anger on his car.
- The storm wreaked havoc on his garden.From the entry wreak havoc
- After tearing his fave T-shirt unintentionally, my brother wreaked revenge on me by ripping my most prized blazer apart.From the entry revenge
- That’s because, historically, recessions have often wreaked havoc on stock portfolios.2007 December 9, Paul J. Lim, “The ‘R’ Word Doesn’t Have to Be So Scary”, in The New York Times. From the entry r-word
Meaning of wreak
- verb To cause harm; to afflict; to inflict; to harm or injure; to let out harm.
- verb To chasten, or chastise/chastize, or castigate, or punish, or smite.
- verb To inflict or take vengeance on.
Questions about the past tense of wreak
- What is the past tense of wreak?
- The past tense of wreak is wreaked.
- What is the past participle of wreak?
- The past participle of wreak is wreaked.
- Is wreak a regular or irregular verb?
- Wreak is a regular verb: its past tense adds -ed.
- Is wrought correct?
- wrought is marked nonstandard in Wiktionary. The usual past tense of wreak is wreaked.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wreak (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 wreak.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/wreak. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.