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Past tense of “steal”

🦝 To take something that is not yours.

Number 68 of 175 by frequency — common in reading and television, less so in your own speech, and the participle is the past plus -n. Recognising it is the priority.

Mistakes people make with “steal”

Not “stealed”. Steal does not take -ed — the past simple is stole, however regular it feels to add the ending.

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

Do not confuse it with…

You steal the object and rob the place or person. A thief stole a painting; the same thief robbed the museum.

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.

The participle grows out of the past

steal · stole · stolen. Notice where the third form comes from: not from the base, but from the past simple with an -n stuck on the end. stole → stolen.

That is the easier half of this family, because you only have to remember one strange word and then add a letter. Wear · wore · worn and swear · swore · sworn work the same way.

Either way the ending does the work for you. A form ending in -n needs have, has, had or a passive be in front of it; without one it stands alone as the past — Someone stole my bike last night.

The same pattern — the -en finishers — runs through 48 verbs: