What Is The Past Tense Of Breathe?
This conjugation verb belongs to the regular group, so the past tense for breathe will be “breathed,” following the “-ed” rule for the past tense of verbs.
The table below will show several other primary conjugation forms of “breathe.”
| Bare infinitive | breathe |
| Present participle | breathing |
| Past participle | breathed |
| Third person singular | breathes |
Pronunciation
Another worth considering about a new vocabulary is pronunciation. How do you spell breathe? “Breathe” is quite simple to pronounce due to its one-syllable component.
Take a closer look at this verb’s official transcription following the IPA:
| Form of word | Pronunciation | |
| UK | US | |
| breathe | /briːð/ | /briːð/ |
| breathed | /briːðd/ | /briːðd/ |
| breathed | /briːðd/ | /briːðd/ |
With the front vowel /i:/, open your mouth, widen and tense your lips. Raise your tongue but do not touch the upper roof. Pull the tip of your tongue to the front and lower it a little bit.
With the fricative consonant like /ð/, the way to pronounce it is unique from other ones. Place the tip of your tongue between your front teeth and make a gentle touch. The air from your throat will flow between your tongue and upper teeth. Then, you have the voiced consonant sound of /ð/.
For the breathe past tense form, “breathe” ends with the consonant /ð/, which belongs to the voiced sound group. So you will add the “d” sound at the end.
Click here to check if you have pronounced it correctly.
Definition And How To Use Breathed
Definition
Following the official Cambridge dictionary, breathe definition offers four primary meanings:
- To take air into and out of the lungs repeatedly
Ex: I breathed fresh air right after reaching Everest peak.
- To say something in silence.
Ex: “Please run quickly” – The actor breathes
- To let wine release air for a while to enhance the flavor.
Ex: Experts will let the wine breathe for a short time before tasting it. Then they show us how to grasp the glass and shake it properly.
- To show an impression of something.
Ex: The new gown breathes luxury.
Click here to see the past tense of “show”.
Breathed Usage
When you mention an event or situation that already happened and ended in the past, using the past tense of breath – “breathed” is appropriate.
Ex: A few days ago, my family went on a holiday to Mount Everest. I breathed deadly hard once reaching the peak.
Ex: He breathed, “Here we come,” after we escaped out of the maze.
Exercises
FAQs
Breath vs Breathe: How Do They Differ?
Breath is the noun form of the verb “breathe”.
What Are The Synonyms Of Breathe?
There are several words you can interchange with the verb “breathe”:
- exhale and inhale
- respire
- sigh
- gasp
- pant
- puff
- sniff
- express
Can You Use “Have Breathed” For Perfect Tenses?
Of course, you can. “Breathe” is the regular verb, so when transcribed into perfect tenses, you need to add “ed” at the end and freely use “have breathed” or “had breathed”.
His name is Benjamin Essek – The founder of Grammar Wiki. He is an English native speaker and has joined many English classes, learning communities to support other people with this common language as well.