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Past tense of “draw”

🎨 To make a picture with a pencil or a pen.

Number 71 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 “draw”

Not “drawed”. Draw does not take -ed — the past simple is drew, however regular it feels to add the ending.

Not “have drew”. After have, has or had the verb switches to its third form: I have drawn, never I have drew. 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 drew, the participle takes drawn. 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. Drew stands alone; drawn waits for have — He has drawn a map for us.

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