had

A1 Topic:Grammar & Function Words

US /hæd/ UK /hæd/ See IPA manual

Minimal pairs

Sounds like head /ɛ/ vs /æ/

Freq #86

Meanings

1

verb
Past tense and past participle of "have".

This morning I had an egg for breakfast.
2

verb
Used with a past participle to talk about an action finished before another past action.

I felt sure that I had seen him before.

Verb forms

Verb forms are not available for this word yet.

Thesaurus

Word family

Derived forms chadunhad

Etymology

From Middle English hadde (preterite), yhad (past participle), from Old English hæfde (first and third person singular preterite), ġehæfd (past participle), from Proto-Germanic *habdaz, past and past participle stem of *habjaną (“to have”), equivalent to have + -ed. Cognate with Dutch had, German hatte, Swedish hade, Icelandic hafði.

hadde Middle English hæfde Old English *habdaz Proto-Germanic

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Topics

Grammar & Function Words

External links

# had

**Type:** Word
**Level:** A1
**Part of speech:** verb
**IPA (US):** /hæd/
**IPA (UK):** /hæd/
**Frequency rank:** 86

## Meanings
1. Past tense and past participle of "have".
2. Used with a past participle to talk about an action finished before another past action.

## Examples
- This morning I had an egg for breakfast.
- I felt sure that I had seen him before.

## Derived Forms
- chad
- unhad

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: hadde
- Root: hæfde
- Root: *habdaz

## Etymology
From Middle English hadde (preterite), yhad (past participle), from Old English hæfde (first and third person singular preterite), ġehæfd (past participle), from Proto-Germanic *habdaz, past and past participle stem of *habjaną (“to have”), equivalent to have + -ed. Cognate with Dutch had, German hatte, Swedish hade, Icelandic hafði.

## AI Etymology
Had comes from Middle English hadde (preterite), yhad (past participle), from Old English hæfde (first and third person singular preterite), ġehæfd (past participle), from Proto-Germanic *habdaz, past and past participle stem of *habjaną (“to have”), equivalent to have + -ed. Cognate with Dutch had, German hatte, Swedish hade, Icelandic hafði. The analysis is mainly morphological: the modern verbal form is built from the named base and affix. In current use, the main senses are “Past tense and past participle of "have"” and “Used with a past participle to talk about an action finished before another past action”.

## Topics
- Grammar & Function Words

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had