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Past tense of “break”

💥 To damage something so it is in pieces.

Number 30 of 175 by frequency, well inside the everyday core, and the participle is the past plus -n. Worth learning properly rather than recognising vaguely.

Mistakes people make with “break”

Not “breaked”. Break does not take -ed — the past simple is broke, however regular it feels to add the ending.

Not “have broke”. After have, has or had the verb switches to its third form: I have broken, never I have broke. 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.

The participle grows out of the past

break · broke · broken. Notice where the third form comes from: not from the base, but from the past simple with an -n stuck on the end. broke → broken.

That is the easier half of this family, because you only have to remember one strange word and then add a letter. Wear · wore · worn and swear · swore · sworn work the same way.

Either way the ending does the work for you. A form ending in -n needs have, has, had or a passive be in front of it; without one it stands alone as the past — He broke his leg last winter.

The same pattern — the -en finishers — runs through 48 verbs: