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Past tense of “blow”

💨 To push air out of your mouth; to move like wind.

Number 70 of 175 by frequency — common in reading and television, less so in your own speech, and three separate forms to keep apart. Recognising it is the priority.

Mistakes people make with “blow”

Not “blowed”. Blow does not take -ed — the past simple is blew, however regular it feels to add the ending.

Not “have blew”. After have, has or had the verb switches to its third form: I have blown, never I have blew. This one survives into quite advanced English, so it is worth over-learning.

Phrases you will actually hear

These are worth learning whole. A verb sticks far better inside a phrase somebody would really say than on its own in a table.

ew in the past, own in the participle

Two endings, in a fixed order: the past simple takes blew, the participle takes blown. Once you have heard know · knew · known, this whole group falls into place.

Because the two forms rhyme with such different words, they are hard to mix up in speech and easy to mix up in writing. Blew stands alone; blown waits for have — The storm has blown the roof off.

The same pattern — ew → own — runs through 7 verbs: