How to Use Wore or Worn? (Explained, With Examples)

What's the past tense of "wear"?

The simple past tense of wear is wore, and the past participle is worn. Use wore for simple past and worn for past participle forms.

Definition of wear

The Oxford English Dictionary defines wear as "to have something on your body as a piece of clothing, a decoration, etc." It's used in various contexts, from physical clothing to maintaining appearances or showing signs of use.

• The past tense of wear is wore.

• The past participle of wear is worn.

Verb forms of 'wear'

Is "wear" a regular or irregular verb?

Note: Regular verbs end in -ed in the past tense. Any other verb ending is considered irregular.

The verb wear is irregular. Its past tense form is wore and past participle is worn, not "weared" or "worned." This is a pattern shared with a small group of English verbs, and it's important to recognize when using "wear" in different contexts.

Similar irregular verbs

Here are other irregular verbs that follow a similar pattern to wear/wore/worn, with three distinct forms:

When to use "wore" vs. "worn"

She wore a beautiful dress to the party.

She had worn that dress before.

The verb wear uses different forms for simple past tense and past participle. When used as a participle (shown in the second sentence), it requires an auxiliary verb like have, has, or had. The simple past doesn't use a helper verb since it's a complete tense, so wore can stand alone in sentences, whereas participles require an auxiliary verb.

Sentence examples: wear, wore, worn

Synonyms & nearby words

Origin of the verb wear

From Old English werian "to clothe, put on, cover up," related to Old Norse verja, Old High German werian, and Gothic gawasjan "to clothe." The modern sense of "to have on one's body" is from the 13th century.

Practice: Forms of "Wear"