What Is the Past Tense of “Drink”?
The past tense of drink is drank. Remember: the past tense is used to describe an action that occurred in the past and is now finished.
- I drank a lot of soda yesterday.
What Is the Past Participle of “Drink”?
The past participle of drink is drunk. Remember: the past participle is a verb form used to create the perfect tenses and the passive verb forms.
- I had drunk too much coffee before bed last night, so I couldn’t go to sleep.
- The milk was drunk by my thirsty toddler.
“Drink,” “Drank,” “Drunk”
There are regular verbs and irregular verbs.
Regular verbs are those in which the past tense and past participle can be formed simply by adding “-d” or “-ed.” For example, play is a regular verb.
Past tense: Stephen played a lot yesterday.
Past participle: Stephen has played a lot over the last month.
Irregular verbs don’t follow typical conjugation patterns. In other words, they have their own unique forms when it comes to their past tenses or past participle forms.
Take is an example of an irregular verb because its past tense and past participle forms are took and taken, respectively.
Past tense: I took a break.
Past participle: I had taken a break because I was exhausted.
Drink is an irregular verb that means “to ingest liquid through the mouth.”
I drink coffee every day.
You’re supposed to drink eight glasses of water a day.
If you don’t drink anything now, you’ll be thirsty.
Below, we’ll go over its past tense and past participle forms.
“Drank” Is the Past Tense of “Drink”
The past tense of a verb refers to an action that was started and completed in the past.
Drink is an irregular verb; therefore, its past tense is drank, not drinked.
I drank two glasses of wine.
I drinked two glasses of wine.
Josie drank a ginger shot every day for a week.
Josie drinked a ginger shot every day for a week.
They drank the soda that was offered to them.
They drinked the soda that was offered to them.
“Drunk” Is the Past Participle of “Drink”
The past participle is a form of a verb that is used with auxiliary verbs such as be and have to create the past perfect, present perfect, and future perfect tenses.
The past participle of drink is drunk.
The past perfect tense is used to describe an action that happened before some point in the past. It is formed by using the auxiliary verb had followed by the past participle of the verb.
By the time I arrived, my goddaughter had drunk all the juice.
The present perfect tense is used to refer to an action that happened at some point in the past but is relevant to the present. It is generally created using the auxiliary verb have, except with the singular third-person, which uses has.
I have drank way too much coffee, and now I can’t sit still.
Joe has drank way too much coffee, and now he can’t sit still.
The future perfect tense is used to describe an action that will be completed at some point in the future before another action. It is formed by using will have followed by the past participle of the verb.
By the time we return, Charles will have drunk all the beer.
The past participle form of a verb is also used to create a sentence using the passive voice.
The juice was drunk by the guests.
It’s important to note that drunk can also function as a noun or adjective. As a noun, it refers to someone who is “intoxicated” or “habitually drinks alcohol excessively.”
Unfortunately, he became the town drunk.
As an adjective, drunk is used to describe someone who is “intoxicated and impaired by alcohol.”
He is too drunk to stay at the bar.
In certain phrases, drunk can also be used figuratively. For example, drunk with power describes someone as “excessively and recklessly using their power.” Drunk in love describes someone as “being deeply and overwhelmingly in love.”
The new boss is drunk with power.
She’s totally drunk in love and can’t stop talking about him.
Is “Drunken” a Word?
Yes, drunken is a word. At one point, it was also an acceptable past participle form of the verb drink. However, since the 17th century, it has been mainly used as an adjective to describe “someone or something as having been affected by alcohol.”
- A drunken brawl caused the night to end early.
“Drank” or “Drunk”: Never Stumble Over Your Words Again
Remember:
- Drank is the past tense of drink.
- Drunk is the past participle of drink.
The sentence construction can give you a clue on which word you should use. If it contains an auxiliary verb, such as have or be, then the word you want is drunk.
Still dizzy with all this information? LanguageTool is an advanced, multilingual writing assistant that corrects incorrectly used verb forms, no matter how complicated or confusing. Cheers to that!
