Home → Irregular verbs → The -ought gang
The -ought gang
Wildly different bases, identical endings: -ought / -aught. The model to keep in your head is think · thought · thought, and 8 of the 175 verbs on this site follow it.
Where this group comes from
Nothing connects these verbs at the front and everything connects them at the back. Think, buy, bring, catch, teach, seek and fight share no obvious family resemblance, yet all of them land on -ought or -aught.
The gh is a fossil. It used to be pronounced — a rasping sound English lost centuries ago — and the spelling simply never caught up. The compensation is that the past and the participle are always the same word here, so each of these verbs costs you one strange form rather than two.
All 8 verbs in this pattern
| Base form | Past simple | Past participle |
|---|---|---|
| think | thought | thought |
| bring | brought | brought |
| buy | bought | bought |
| catch | caught | caught |
| teach | taught | taught |
| fight | fought | fought |
| seek | sought | sought |
| beseech | besought / beseeched | besought / beseeched |
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.
beseech · besought / beseeched · besought / beseeched
🛐 To beg someone very seriously (old use). Number 174 of 175 by frequency, so one of the rarer ones: the past and the participle are both besought. You will meet it in books and set phrases more than in conversation, and it can wait.
- Past simple: She besought him to stay.
- Past participle: He has besought them for mercy.
British and American English.
Besought is the traditional form, beseeched the modern one. Either way the verb is formal enough that you will mostly meet it in older writing.
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