Regular and Irregular Verbs in English, Examples & List

Regular and Irregular Verbs: Regular verbs are those verbs whose simple past and past participle have a set or fixed ending. On the other hand, there are certain verbs that either change their forms completely or remain the same, these are known as Irregular Verbs. Every verb has a base form or ‘infinitive’ (for example, look, make, play). The majority of verbs, called ‘Regular verbs’, follow the same pattern and create the past simple and the past participle using the same word ending -ed. There are, however, verbs that have different endings, and these are called ‘Irregular verbs.’ So here you will get to know about regular and irregular verbs in detail.

Regular and Irregular Verbs in English

A verb is a word that conveys actions( what things to do) and a state of being done( How things are done). Regular verbs and irregular verbs are the types of verbs. Regular verbs are those which follow the same pattern of changing verbs into past, past participle, or future tense whereas irregular verbs are those verbs that do not follow the same rules of conjugation. Let us discuss regular verbs and irregular verbs one by one.

Regular verbs

These verbs are a form of verbs that follow the normal rules of conjugation, that is, they follow a typical pattern for changing verbs into their past, past participle, or future tense forms. Usually, -ed or -d is added to regular verbs when used in the past tense or in case the word ends with a ‘y’ then the ‘y’ is removed, and "-ied” is added.

For example,

1. Pooja accepts the award on his behalf. (Present tense)
2. Pooja accepted the award on his behalf. (Simple past)
3. Pooja will accept the award on his behalf. (Future)
4. Pooja already accepted the award on his behalf. (Past participle)

In the example above you can see the use of the word ‘accept’ in its present(accepts), simple past (accepted), future (will accept), and past participle (accepted) form.  

Different forms of Regular verbs

Regular verbs are those verbs that have the same fixed ending, that is if the verb that ends in ‘-e’ is changed to past tense by adding ‘-d’ also the verbs that end with ‘y’ are changed to past tense by replacing ‘y’ to ‘-ied’ also the verb that ends in a vowel and a consonant then the consonant is doubled and ‘-ed’ is added to change to past tense. Here we have three different forms of regular verbs

If the verbs that end in -e are changed to the past tense by adding -d:

For Example,

• like – liked
• love – loved
• taste – tasted
• live – lived
• decide – decided, etc.

If the verbs that end with ‘y’:

For Example,

• Marry – Married
• Try – tried
• Dry – dried
• Carry – carried
• Apply – applied

If a verb of a single syllable ends in a vowel and a consonant, then the consonant is doubled and -ed is added to change it to the past tense.

For Example,

• stop – stopped
• hop – hopped
• Ban – banned
• Chat – chatted
• Drag – dragged

Irregular verbs

Unlike regular verbs, irregular verbs do not follow the normal rules of conjugation to form past, past participle, or future tense forms. In other words, any verb that does not add -ed, ‘-ied’, or -d to its past tense form is considered an irregular verb. Irregular verbs are sometimes also called strong verbs.

 For Example,

1. I have a lot of work to do.
2. Did you complete the work?
3. The work was done.

In the above example, you can see the use of the word ‘do’ in its present(do), simple past (did), and past participle (done) form.

Different Forms of Irregular Verbs

Irregular forms of the verbs are those verbs that do not have the same ending, their endings are different. Below is the description of different forms of irregular verbs.

Verbs that have different forms in each tense mean that a verb has entirely different present, past, and past participle forms.

For Example, Let us take the example of the verb ‘to be’. The verb ‘to be’ takes different forms in each tense-

is/are in the present tense

was/were in the past tense

Been in past participle

• He is skateboarding. (Present Tense)
• He was skateboarding. (Past Tense)
• He has been skateboarding. (Past participle)

Verbs that remain the same in Past and Past Participle Forms

Some irregular verbs change once and are used in the form of past tense and past participle tense.  

For Example,  Let us take the example of the verb ‘bring’.

• I will bring the rest of the books tomorrow.
• I bought this cycle.
• She had bought it to frighten him with.

Verbs that Change only in the Past Tense

Some irregular verbs only change in the past tense. The present and past participle forms remain the same  

For Example, Let us take the example of the verb ‘come’.

• I didn’t want to come tonight.
• She came to the event last night.
• He had come to apologize.

Verbs that don’t Change in any Tense

Some irregular verbs remain the same in all three forms. 

For Example, Let us take the example of the verb ‘put’

• She put on her red dress.
• The dog was put to sleep.
• She had put her shoes on before going into the garden.

List of Regular Verbs

Below is the list of regular verbs to make your understanding better:

List of Irregular Verbs

Below is the list of irregular verbs to make your understanding better: