What’s the past tense of “bleed”?
What’s the past tense of the verb to bleed? Is it bleed, blood, bleeded, or bled?
The cut bled for a few minutes.
She has bled from that wound before.
My finger bleeded when I cut it.
The patient had bleed a lot.
The gist: forms of bleed
What does the verb, to bleed, mean? The word bleed comes from the noun blood, which is “the fluid that circulates in the heart, arteries, capillaries, and veins of a vertebrate animal carrying nourishment and oxygen to and bringing away waste products from all parts of the body,” as described by Merriam-Webster, blood.
| Tense | Present | Past | Future |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple | I bleed | I bled | I will bleed |
| Continuous | I am bleeding | I was bleeding | I will be bleeding |
| Perfect | I have bled | I had bled | I will have bled |
| Perfect Continuous | I have been bleeding | I had been bleeding | I will have been bleeding |
Is bleed a regular or irregular verb?
The verb bleed (based on the noun blood) is irregular since it ends in—hold on, bled does end in -ed in its past tense forms—so why is bled still seen as irregular in English? The difference between regular and irregular verbs is that regular verbs end in -ed, whereas irregular verbs end in something other than -ed in their past tense and participle forms.
Bled evidently ends in -ed, and is a past tense form of a verb, but it is still irregular. Regular verbs add the -ed to the base verb; bled, on the other hand, is a complete respelling of the simple verb bleed. Bled removes the other inner vowel – e, and changes the pronunciation almost completely. It may as well be an entirely different word. The verb bleed belongs to the class of irregular verbs with 2 different forms. See the chart of other irregular verbs in the same class:
| base verb | past tense | past participle |
| lead | led | led |
| speed | sped | sped |
| bleed | bled | bled |
| feed | fed | fed |
| breed | bred | bred |
Bled: simple past vs past participle
Compare the following sentences:
Simple past: The back of her head bled.
Past perfect: The back of her head had bled onto the bedsheets.
Though the simple past of bleed (i.e., bled) is the same as its past participle form, what sets them apart is whether there are auxiliaries used in the same sentence, such as had/have/has (in the past perfect and present perfect tenses). Remember that participles always appear in sentences with auxiliary verbs, whereas the simple past tense uses the past tense form without the need of any helper verbs.
“bleed’s” past tense is “bled,” picture blood *leaving* a body – the “le” changes to just “l” when the blood *left*.
Used in a sentence: bled
| Word Form | Examples |
|---|---|
| Simple Past |
He bled on the floor. The wound bled for hours. You bled on my tie and puked on my shoes. |
| Past Participle |
The patient had bled profusely. The wound has bled all over his shirt. The oil tank had been bled earlier. |
Origin of the word bleed
Old English bledan, “cause to lose blood, to let blood” (in Middle English and after, especially “to let blood from surgically”), also (intransitive) “emit blood,” from Proto-Germanic *blodjan “emit blood”.
Practice: ‘Bleed’ conjugations
If you cut your finger, it might ___.
He ___ heavily after falling off his bike.
Doctors try to stop the patient from continuing to ___.
The wound ___ for several minutes before it stopped.
If you see ___ on a bandage, you should change it.
FAQs
What is the past tense of bleed?
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Is the word bleeded correct?
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How is bled used in sentences?
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Why is bleed considered irregular?
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What are the other forms of bleed?
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Sources
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“Bleed, V.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, June 2025, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/4565462679.
Yash, D. "How to Use Bleeded* or Bled? (Irregular Verb Conjugations)." Grammarflex, Aug 24, 2025, https://grammarflex.com/bleeded-vs-bled/.
