How to Use Sleeped or Slept (Irregular Verb Forms)

August 6, 2025

5 min read

By Yash, D

Sleep is in the present tense. Slept is both the simple past tense and past participle of the verb, to sleep.

How to Use Sleeped or Slept (Irregular Verb Forms)

What’s the past tense of “sleep”?

What’s the past tense of the verb sleep? Is it sleep, sleeped, or slept? If you guessed sleeped, you may need to flex your grammar skills more often. Stick around—stay awhile.

👍🏼Usage Note

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How many hours did you sleep?

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I sleeped on the plane.

Forms of the irregular verb sleep

Let’s define the topic first. The verb sleep, as described by Collins Dictionary, “sleep is the natural state of rest in which your eyes are closed, your body is inactive, and your mind does not think.”

	Present	Past	Future
Simple	I sleep	I slept	I will sleep
Continuous	I am sleeping	I was sleeping	I will be sleeping
Perfect	I have slept	I had slept	I will have slept
Perfect Continuous	I have been sleeping	I had been sleeping	I will have been sleeping

Is sleep a regular or irregular verb?

The verb sleep is irregular because it does not end in -ed in either its past tense or past participle form. The difference between regular and irregular verbs is: Regular verbs end in “-ed” in their past tense forms. **Irregular verbs** end in something other than “-ed.”

The verb sleep belongs to the class of irregular verbs with 2 different verb forms. Here’s a chart of other irregular verbs within the same group.

Base Verb	Past Tense	Past Participle
dream	dreamed/dreamt	dreamed/dreamt
burn	burned/burnt	burned/burnt
sleep	slept	slept
leap	leapt/leaped	leapt/leaped

Irregular verbs (similar to “sleep”).

Sleep/Slept in sentence examples

Word Form	Examples
Present Tense (“sleep”)	Try and get some sleep. I couldn’t sleep last night.
Past Tense (“slept”)	He slept soundly. I only slept two hours last night. We slept under the open sky.
Past Participle (“slept”)	I had slept for twelve hours by the time I woke up. The baby had slept through the entire night for the first time.

Examples of “sleep” usage in various forms.

💡Study Tip

Practice using the verb in different tenses with example sentences to memorize the correct forms.

Origin of the word sleep

Of Germanic Origin

Old English slæpan “to be or fall asleep; be dormant or inactive” (class VII strong verb; past tense slep, past participle slæpen), from Proto-Germanic *slēpanan.

Etymology of “sleep” (verb).

Practice: Forms of “Sleep”

FAQs

Is “sleep” a regular or irregular verb?
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“Sleep” is an irregular verb. Unlike regular verbs that add “-ed” to form the past tense (e.g., “walked”), “sleep” forms its past tense and past participle as “slept.” This is demonstrated in.

What’s the past tense of “sleep”?
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The past tense of “sleep” is “slept,” not “sleeped.” The post clarifies that “slept” is used for both simple past tense (“I slept for eight hours”) and past participle (“I had slept soundly”). .

How is “slept” used in a sentence?
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“Slept” functions as both simple past tense and past participle. Examples include: “I slept eight hours” (simple past, describing a completed action), and “I had slept before the storm hit” (past.

What’s the difference between simple past “slept” and past?
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While both use “slept,” the simple past (“I slept”) describes a completed action. The past participle (“I had slept”) requires an auxiliary verb (like “had,” “have,” or “has”) and shows an action.

Is “sleeped” ever correct to use?
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No, the post explicitly states that “sleeped” is incorrect. The past tense and past participle of “sleep” are both “slept.” Using “sleeped” demonstrates a misunderstanding of irregular verb.

Sources

Merriam-Webster, definition of sleep.
Etymology online, origin of sleep.

Yash, D. "How to Use Sleeped or Slept (Irregular Verb Forms)." Grammarflex, Aug 24, 2025, https://grammarflex.com/sleeped-or-slept/.

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