What Is The Past Tense Of Slay?
The past tense for slay is “slew”. Although this is a common verb in English, many people often wonder whether slew or slayed is the correct past tense of “slay”.
Because it is classified as an irregular verb, you cannot add “ed” as the suffix to create the past form. The past participle of slay is also different from other forms: slain.
We have summarized all forms of the verb in the table below. You can note them down for learning:
| Form | Verb |
| Bare | slay |
| Present participle | slaying |
| 3rd person singular | slays |
| Past | slew |
| Past participle | slain |
You can find out its pronunciation in this video and practice it yourself:
How Do You Spell Slay In Past Tense?
These three verb forms have only one syllable. Thus, you don’t need to care about the word stress.
Most English learners wrongly pronounce “slew” when they first meet this word. They will say it like /slju:/. However, its main sound must be long u /u:/ instead of /ju:/.
This table below will list down the official IPA of each word:
| Form Of Word |
Pronunciation |
|
|
US |
UK | |
| V1: slay | /sleɪ/ |
/sleɪ/ |
|
V2: slew |
/sluː/ | /sluː/ |
| V3: slain | /sleɪn/ |
/sleɪn/ |
Let’s find out its pronunciation in this video and practice it yourself:
Definition And How To Use
When you need to express an idea or describe something with “slay” meanings, you must use “slew” (the past form) instead of the bare verb (slay).
Here are some meanings of the word and examples to help you understand how to use it in a sentence:
- To kill or murder someone violently
- The robbers slew hostages and were accused of intentional murder.
- His neighbor slew Anna’s dog because it barked a lot.
- The knight slew all the dragons on that island.
- To make a good impression on someone
- When I first met Mary, she slew me with her interesting classes.
- To make someone feel disappointed or upset
I cried at the film that I watched this Saturday. They slew me with its sad ending.
Exercises
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.