What Is The Past Tense Of Sleep?
Once we mention the past tense, what springs into your mind can be the past tense of weave and past tense of shoot. In brief, they’re not regular verbs.
But today, we will make one thing clear: the past tense for sleep.
Long answer short: It’s “slept” which you can spell S-L-E-P-T. In other words, you cut down on an “E” and add a “T” after the verb’s base form.
Also, the past participle of sleep looks like its past tense. We mean, SLEPT.
This table describes all five sleep verb forms (tense verbs) check it out:
| Base Form/Derived Form (V1) | sleep |
| Present Form/3rd Person/Singular Form (V2) | sleeps |
| Past Form (V3) | slept |
| Past Participle Form (V4) | slept |
| Present Participle/Gerund (V5) | sleeping |
Click on this Youtube link to find out all forms of verbs:
How To Pronounce Sleep Past Tense Correctly?
Move on to the second table with the clear direction for the pronunciation of “sleep”, based on the American English and British accents.
|
Form of word |
Pronunciation |
|
|
British English |
American English | |
| sleep | /sliːp/ |
/sliːp/ |
|
sleeps |
/sliːps/ | /sliːps/ |
| slept(v3) | /slept/ |
/slept/ |
|
slept(v4) |
/slept/ | /slept/ |
| sleeping | /ˈsliːpɪŋ/ |
/ˈsliːpɪŋ/ |
How About The Sleep Definition?
After all, head to two meanings of the verb “sleep”. What we share below depends on the Oxford Online dictionary:
- To rest with your body and mind not active and your eyes closed.
- My besties sleep at night every day.
- My dudes slept together when they lived in the dormitory.
- My best friends had slept with each other in the homestay.
2. To have enough beds for a certain number of people.
- The lavish villa sleeps 300 guests.
- This lavish villa slept 300 guests last year, and more than this figure from now on.
- This spacious villa has already slept over 350 people since 2005.
Vocabulary Quiz!
You can’t get enough of what we shared above? Let us warm up the ambiance with a list of quick questions. Choose the correct verb forms:
- Within seconds, Maggie was …………. soundly.
a. sleep b. sleeps c. sleeping d. slept
2. That night I …………. uneasily, anxious about the meeting the next day.
a. slept b. sleeping c. sleep d. sleeps
3. He lay down but was unable to……………
a. sleeping b. slept c. sleep d. sleeps
4. Is the baby …………. all night now?
a. sleeping b. slept c. sleep d. sleeps
5. I didn’t ……………. very well last night, so I couldn’t concentrate on the exam.
a. sleeping b. slept c. sleep d. sleeps
Answer:
- C (sleeping – past continuous form)
- A (slept – simple past)
- C (sleep – bare infinitive)
- A (sleeping – present continuous form)
- C (sleep – bare infinitive, after “did”)
FAQs
Last but not least, spice things up with one exciting additional question or more, as follows:
Is “Sleep” An Irregular Verb?
Yes. It is an irregular verb with the simple past and past participle looking similar: Slept.
How To Spell Sleep?
You could spell it S-L-E-E-P. It’s easy at all.
Sleeped Or Slept?
The correct past participle and past tense of sleep is “slept” (irregular forms), as it’s an irregular verb. It does not have -ED after the base form in the past tense. For more conjugated forms of this verb, check the Wordpreference site.
Idioms For Sleep?
- Sleep tight: Used to say to children before they go to bed, and you hope they sleep well.
- My son, sleep tight!
2. Sleep like a baby/log: To sleep very nicely and well.
- Anna felt exhausted after all the exertions. She slept like a log.
- My nephew often sleeps like a baby.
3. Not get/have a wink of sleep | not sleep a wink: Not able to sleep.
- My girlfriend had a wink of sleep yesterday.
- I scarcely sleep a wink.
4. Live/sleep rough: To live or sleep outdoors, notably as you have no money and no home.
- Many homeless are sleeping rough on the pavements.
5. Let sleeping dogs lie: To avoid talking about something that happened in the past to prevent any issues or arguments.
6. Breathe/rest/sleep easy: To rest and stop worrying.
- She can rest easy as every hassle is done utterly.
- The police can sleep easy after successfully capturing the criminals.
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.