Home → Irregular verbs → fight
Past tense of “fight”
🥊 To use force or words against someone.
Number 65 of 175 by frequency — common in reading and television, less so in your own speech, and the past and the participle are both fought. Recognising it is the priority.
Mistakes people make with “fight”
Not “fighted” or “fit”. Fight does not take -ed — the past simple is fought, however regular it feels to add the ending.
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.
Unrecognisable base, predictable ending
Fight and fought barely look related, and that is normal for this group. What holds it together is the ending: -ought or -aught, shared by think, buy, bring, catch, teach, seek and fight.
The good news is that the past and the participle are identical — fought covers both — so there is one strange word to learn rather than two. The gh is silent; it is a fossil from a sound English lost centuries ago.
- Past simple: The two boys fought in the yard.
- Past participle: They have fought about money for years.
The same pattern — the -ought gang — runs through 8 verbs:
Practise it
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