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Past tense of “do”

✅ To perform an action or a task.

Number 3 of 175 by frequency — unavoidable in ordinary English, and three forms that share almost nothing. If you learn twenty irregular verbs, this is one of them.

Mistakes people make with “do”

Not “doed”. Do does not take -ed — the past simple is did, however regular it feels to add the ending.

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

Say it right

The past did is straightforward, but the participle done rhymes with sun, and the present-tense does rhymes with buzz.

Do not confuse it with…

Roughly: you do activities and work, you make things that did not exist before. Did the washing-up, made dinner.

See “make” →

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.

No pattern to lean on

do · did · done — three words that share almost nothing. There is no rule hiding here and no family to learn it with. These are the handful of verbs English uses most heavily, and heavy use is exactly what let them stay strange while everything around them regularised.

Which means: memorise all three, and memorise which is which. Did stands alone — He did his homework an hour ago. Done never does; it needs have, has, had or a passive be — Have you done the dishes yet?

The same pattern — free spirits — runs through 5 verbs: