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Past tense of “sting”

🐝 To prick the skin with a sharp point, like a bee does.

Number 147 of 175 by frequency, so one of the rarer ones: the past and the participle are both stung. You will meet it in books and set phrases more than in conversation, and it can wait.

Mistakes people make with “sting”

Not “stinged”. Sting does not take -ed — the past simple is stung, however regular it feels to add the ending.

Only the vowel moves

The consonants stay exactly where they are and the vowel changes underneath them: sting → stung, i → u. Nothing is added and nothing is dropped.

The past simple and the past participle are the same word, stung. Half the work disappears: learn sting · stung and you have the whole verb. What is left is telling the two jobs apart — A bee stung me on the arm. is the past simple, The wasp has stung the dog. is the perfect, and have does all the signalling.

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

The same pattern — twins — runs through 73 verbs: