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Past tense of “swing”

🎠 To move back and forth through the air.

Number 78 of 175 by frequency — common in reading and television, less so in your own speech, and the past and the participle are both swung. Recognising it is the priority.

Mistakes people make with “swing”

Not “swinged”. Swing does not take -ed — the past simple is swung, 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: swing → swung, i → u. Nothing is added and nothing is dropped.

The past simple and the past participle are the same word, swung. Half the work disappears: learn swing · swung and you have the whole verb. What is left is telling the two jobs apart — The monkey swung from branch to branch. is the past simple, The door has swung open. is the perfect, and have does all the signalling.

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

The same pattern — twins — runs through 73 verbs: