Home → Irregular verbs → ew → own
ew → own
Past in -ew, participle in -own. Blow, grow, throw all play along. The model to keep in your head is know · knew · known, and 7 of the 175 verbs on this site follow it.
Where this group comes from
Two endings in a fixed order: the past takes -ew, the participle takes -own. Know · knew · known. Throw · threw · thrown. Once the rhythm is in your ear the whole group follows.
Because the two forms rhyme with such different words, they are almost impossible to confuse in speech and very easy to confuse in writing. This is a group to practise by saying rather than by reading.
All 7 verbs in this pattern
| Base form | Past simple | Past participle |
|---|---|---|
| know | knew | known |
| fly | flew | flown |
| grow | grew | grown |
| throw | threw | thrown |
| blow | blew | blown |
| draw | drew | drawn |
| withdraw | withdrew | withdrawn |
Covered in detail here
This verb is rare enough that a separate page would mostly repeat the explanation above. What is worth saying about it is said here instead.
withdraw · withdrew · withdrawn
🏧 To take something out; to move back. Number 149 of 175 by frequency, so one of the rarer ones: three separate forms to keep apart. You will meet it in books and set phrases more than in conversation, and it can wait.
- Past simple: She withdrew money from the ATM.
- Past participle: The army has withdrawn from the city.
Mistakes people make with “withdraw”.
Not “withdrawed”. Withdraw does not take -ed — the past simple is withdrew, however regular it feels to add the ending.
Not “have withdrew”. After have, has or had the verb switches to its third form: I have withdrawn, never I have withdrew. This one survives into quite advanced English, so it is worth over-learning.
Practise all 175 verbs on your phone
Spaced repetition brings each verb back right before you would forget it. Three difficulty modes, a 60-second Blitz, streaks and a verb collection. Free, works offline, no account.
