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Past tense of “say”

💬 To speak words.

Number 4 of 175 by frequency — unavoidable in ordinary English, and the past and the participle are both said. If you learn twenty irregular verbs, this is one of them.

Mistakes people make with “say”

Not “sayed”. Say does not take -ed — the past simple is said, however regular it feels to add the ending.

Say it right

Three vowels, three sounds: say rhymes with day, said with bed, and even the present-tense says rhymes with fizz — not with days.

Do not confuse it with…

Say takes the words, tell takes the person: he said something, he told me something. “He said me” is never right.

See “tell” →

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.

Two forms, learned as one word

The past simple and the past participle are the same word, said. Half the work disappears: learn say · said and you have the whole verb. What is left is telling the two jobs apart — She said goodbye and left. is the past simple, He has already said everything he knows. is the perfect, and have does all the signalling.

There is no tidy rule connecting say to said — this is a verb you memorise as a pair and stop analysing. The consolation is that it is a pair and not a trio: sayed is the only wrong answer worth guarding against.

The same pattern — twins — runs through 73 verbs: