What’s the Past Tense of Eat? Ate or Eaten?

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What’s the past tense of “eat”?

So, today’s topic: what’s the past tense of eat? Not all irregular verbs are alike; each are irregular in its own way. As is the case with the verb “eat”, which changes in its present, past and past participle form.

• The simple present tense is eat. Ate is the simple past.

• The past participle is eaten; (pairs with auxiliaries to form perfect/progressive tenses (such as have or had).

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Verb forms of eat

	present	past	future
simple	I eat	I ate	I will eat
continuous	I am eating	I was eating	I will be eating
perfect	I have eaten	I had eaten	I will have eaten
perfect continuous	I have been eating	I had been eating	I will have been eating

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When to use “ate” or “eaten”

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tense	sentence examples
simple present	I eat breakfast every morning.
present continuous	I am eating breakfast with my friends.
present perfect	I’ve eaten dinner already, so you don’t need to cook.
present perfect continuous	I’ve been eating apples everyday to “keep the docto away”.
simple past	I ate dinner with my friends last night.
past continuous	I was eating dinner with my friends before he came over.
past perfect	Dan had already eaten breakfast by the time the sun came up.
past perfect continuous	I’d been eating sushi for years until I realized the level of mercury.
simple future	I will eat dinner with my friends tomorrow.
future continuous	I will be eating a lot over the Thanksgiving weekend.
future perfect tense	I will have eaten my money’s worth at the buffet by the time it closes.
future perfect continuous	I will have been eating for hours by then, so I might be full.

When to use “ate” vs. “eaten”

Compare how the verb ‘eat’ appears in both sentences:

simple past	I ate junk food and stopped working out.
present perfect	I haven’t eaten all day.

Both sentences refer to something that takes place initially at a time before the current moment, but the present perfect clearly connects the past and present.

Is “eat” a regular or irregular verb?

base verb	past tense	past participle
eat	ate	eaten
swim	swam	swum
sing	sang	sung
draw	drew	drawn
ring	rang	rung
drink	drank	drunk

Eat/ate/eaten, used in sentences

Examples: “eat“, present tense

Don’t you want to eat before we leave? I never eat this early in the morning. These things will eat you alive.

Examples: “ate“, past tenses

The family ate dinner together. They ate sandwiches for lunch. He ate a huge supper.

Examples: “eaten“, past participle

I haven’t eaten real food in weeks. Dan had already eaten breakfast by the time the sun came up. We discovered that the cat had eaten the cheese, but we don’t know what happened to the crackers.

Synonyms of eat

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• consume
• devour
• ingest
• nibble
• feast
• graze
• chomp
• swallow
• munch
• snack
• gobble
• dine
• sup
• partake
• taste

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Phrases with the word eat

Phrase	Meaning
Dog-eat-dog	You have to be ruthless to achieve what you want in society.
Don’t crap where you eat	Don’t fill your home or place or work with engaging in messy relationships/risky situations.
Eat an elephant one bite at a time	You accomplish a onerous task by taking it one step at a time.
Could eat the crotch out of a low-flying duck	A way of saying that you’re extremely hungry.
Eat crow/eat humble pie	To admit when you’re wrong, even if it’s embarrassing.
To eat one’s cake and have it too	To simultaneously have two things that are mutually exclusive.
Eat high on the hog	To flourish or otherwise live well.
Eat the bread of idleness	A phrase from the bible meaning to eat food one didn’t personally earn.
Grab a bite to eat	Meant literally. To go get something to eat.

Origin of the word eat

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From etymology online on eat (v.):

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Old English etan (class V strong verb; past tense æt, past participle eten) “to consume food, devour, consume,” from Proto-Germanic *etan.

Practice questions: forms of “eat”

Questions	Answer options:
1. True or false: “Eat” is a regular verb.	a. true b. false
2. True or false: Regular verbs end in “ed” to show the past.	a. true b. false
3. True or false: “Eat” looks the same in the present and past tense.	a. true b. false
4. Choose the correct tense sentence is in: I’ve already eaten, so don’t worry about making dinner.	a. past b. present perfect c. past perfect
5. The sentence is in which tense: I ate there last night.	a. present b. past c. future
6. Choose the form of ‘eat’ to complete the sentence: I ___ pizza there a bunch of times.	a. eat b. am eating c. have eaten

‍Answers

1. b
2. a
3. b
4. b
5. b
6. c

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Learn more about verbs

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• What are regular and irregular verbs?
• Transitive and intransitive verbs?
• What are verbs?
• Past tense of spread?
• What’re personal pronouns?
• What’s the difference between they’re, their, and there?
• Whose vs who’s?

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Sources

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1. Merriam-Webster, Definition of eat.
2. Etymology online, Origin of eat.
3. “never eat Shredded Wheat.” Wiktionary. 5 Dec 2023, 13:11 UTC. 18 Feb 2024, 01:18 <https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=never_eat_Shredded_Wheat&oldid=76881986>.

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