Home → Irregular verbs → win

Past tense of “win”

🏆 To be the best in a game or a competition.

Number 41 of 175 by frequency, well inside the everyday core, and the past and the participle are both won. Worth learning properly rather than recognising vaguely.

Mistakes people make with “win”

Not “winned”. Win does not take -ed — the past simple is won, however regular it feels to add the ending.

Do not confuse it with…

You win the thing at stake — a game, a prize. The person you defeat, you beat.

See “beat” →

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.

Only the vowel moves

The consonants stay exactly where they are and the vowel changes underneath them: win → won, i → o. Nothing is added and nothing is dropped.

The past simple and the past participle are the same word, won. Half the work disappears: learn win · won and you have the whole verb. What is left is telling the two jobs apart — Our team won the match on Saturday. is the past simple, He has won three gold medals. is the perfect, and have does all the signalling.

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

The same pattern — twins — runs through 73 verbs: