Question

What is the past participle of “wear”? Is it worn or wore?

Answer 1

Hint: You have most likely learned some irregular verbs, which are mentioned using a set of relevant terms like such: simple past, infinitive, and even in the past participle. Any verb's past participle can occur in two different forms. Any past participle may be used in two scenarios: it may be used for constructing a past verb structure and it can also be utilized in place of an adjective. Try to find the word that comes after have/had in a perfect tense.

Complete answer:
A past participle is really a special verb type used within the perfect conjugations for both present and past tenses, whereas the past tense is just the conjugation of a tense. Basically one is a tense and the other is used within other tenses. Past tense is the former while past participle is in the latter.

Now the verb specified for us is ‘wear’, let us see its different forms:
‘Wore’ is the past tense of the verb ‘wear’.
‘Wears’ is the third-person singular (singular that is ‘he, she, it’) in the simple present indicative form.
‘Wearing’ is the present participle for this verb.
‘Worn’ is the past participle of this verb.

Here there is a general confusion for deciding the right past participle because here ‘wear’ is an irregular verb. Such verbs do not have a specific way of being conjugated and so their past participle will not be the same as their past tense. Here we have a similar case between ‘wore’ and ‘wear’, so here ‘wore’ is past tense and the required past participle is ‘worn’.
Example: Mikah had worn this top last night. [Here ‘worn’ becomes a past participle]

Thus, the past participle of “wear” is “worn”.

Note: This is a very important concept we must remember that; any past participle can serve two very distinct purposes: firstly it can be used to construct past verb structures which is very commonly done like in past tense and perfect tenses, and secondly it can also be utilized in place of an adjective.
Example:
- Reena has a worn out top. [here ‘worn out’ is the past participle in the adjective form]
- Reena has worn this top. [here ‘worn’ is the past participle in the verb form]