Home → Irregular verbs → spit

Past tense of “spit”

🐪 To force liquid out of your mouth.

Number 144 of 175 by frequency, so one of the rarer ones: the past and the participle are both spat. You will meet it in books and set phrases more than in conversation, and it can wait.

Mistakes people make with “spit”

Not “spitted”. Spit does not take -ed — the past simple is spat, however regular it feels to add the ending.

British and American English

Spat is standard in British English; American English also uses spit for all three forms.

Only the vowel moves

The consonants stay exactly where they are and the vowel changes underneath them: spit → spat, i → a. Nothing is added and nothing is dropped.

The past simple and the past participle are the same word, spat. Half the work disappears: learn spit · spat and you have the whole verb. What is left is telling the two jobs apart — The camel spat at the tourist. is the past simple, The fire has spat sparks all night. is the perfect, and have does all the signalling.

This is worth hearing rather than reading. Say spit and spat one after the other — the shape of your mouth changes, the word does not.

The same pattern — twins — runs through 73 verbs: