Past Tense Of Shine: Shined or Shone? (Pronunciation & Usage)

By Benjamin Essek

What Is The Past Tense Of Shine?

No matter if you are a negative speaker or a language learner, past tense will play an important role in English usage and learning. Rules and exceptions to those rules for past tense forms may be found just about wherever you look in English; therefore, this difficult language is so difficult to grasp.

In English, the past tense is formed by adding “-d” or “-ed” to the end of the original verb form (like the past tense of bury or shy) . However, irregular verbs can make this much more difficult because each irregular verb has its own past tense irregular forms based on no rules.

When it comes to the past tense of shine, the fact that “to shine” may be either a transitive verb or an intransitive verb further complicates matters. Therefore, the past tense of the shine has two different options, and all of them are acceptable.

The simple past tense of shine may be formed in two ways: either by adding the -d suffix, as in “she shined,” or by switching the spelling from shine to shone. Both are technically valid, although the term shone has more widespread acceptance in everyday use. And the word shine is more prevalent in British English and is often used for formal conversations.

You can see more in the below table:

Bare form shine
Present participle form shining
3rd person singular form shines
Past form shined/shone
Past participle form shined/shone

How Do You Spell Shine In Past Tense?

Do you need a quick fix for how “shine” is pronounced in various British and American English accents? This handy table, based on The online Oxford Dictionary, will provide the pronunciation of the past tense of to shine and other forms:

Form of word

Pronunciation

British English

American English

shine

/ʃaɪn/ /ʃaɪn/
shines /ʃaɪnz/

/ʃaɪnz/

shone

/ʃɒn/

/ʃəʊn/

shined

/ʃaɪnd/ /ʃaɪnd/
shooting /ˈʃaɪnɪŋ/

/ˈʃaɪnɪŋ/

 

The US and UK pronunciation of the past tense for shine is somewhat different. The /əʊ/ sound appears in American IPA, whereas the /ɒ/ sound appears in British IPA. You can check the videos How to Pronounce shone – American English and How to pronounce SHONE in British English to clear.

Definition of the Word “Shine” and Its Usage

Exploring the verb’s meaning of shine in more depth now. This is also one of those things whose full worth you can’t guess until you try using it in conversation, so don’t ignore it too quickly.

For a more in-depth grasp of the topic at hand, let’s scroll down and check out the explanatory text and illustrative examples that follow.

  1. To emit or reflect a bright light

Example: In the summer, the sun usually shines brilliantly.

2. To direct the light of a bulb or other source toward a certain target.

Example: Last week, a doctor repeatedly shone a light in my eyes when I came to the hospital.

3. To bring out a thing’s natural shine and smoothness by polishing

Example: To make money, many children are shining shoes and selling newspapers.

4. To demonstrate exceptional skill in something

Example: Although he was not an eminent student in the classroom, he shone on the sports field.

Additionally, some idioms using the word shine below:

5. A knight in shining armor: a guy who rescues another person, usually a lady, from harm

Example: The princess is still hoping that her knight in shining armor would arrive soon.

6. Make hay while the sun shines: to take advantage of favorable circumstances while they exist

Example: She is rewarded because of excessive hours, but  supposes she just makes hay while the sun shines.

7. Rise and shine ( is an old-fashioned idiom): common command used to motivate people to get up and get moving

Example: Every morning, my mother comes to my room and says: “Rise and shine, my love!”

The “shine” word is combined with “through” to create a phrasal verb shine through. It means “simple to detect or identify”.

Example: After she calmed down, her abilities began to shine through.

Practice Exercises

You may practice the past tense of shine with the following exercises:

  1. Last month, this black wood that had been polished … like crystal.

A. shine

B. shines

C. shining

D.  shone

2. A growing number of activists are … attention to the world’s rapidly dwindling supply of natural resources.

A. shine

B. shines

C. shining

D. shone

3. The lights have … since last night.

A. shine

B. shines

C. shining

D. shined

4. “Rise and …” is a common sentence that appears in my mind every day.

A. shine

B. shines

C. shining

D. shone

5. In winter, the sun does not … as harshly as in summer.

A. shine

B. shines

C. shining

D. shone

 Answer keys:

  1. d
  2. c
  3. d
  4. a
  5. a

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