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bet

/bet/

wager

Verb forms

Base form

bet

/bet/

Past Simple

bet

Past Participle

bet

Example sentences

Base form Β· bet

  • I bet you can't eat that whole pizza.

Past Simple Β· bet

  • He bet ten pounds on the wrong horse.
  • He didn't bet anything at the meeting.
  • Did you bet it before lunch?
  • I bet it as soon as I possibly could.

Past Participle Β· bet

  • Millions have been bet on this match.
  • I have already bet it more than once.
  • She has just bet the very same thing.
  • By the time we arrived, they had bet everything.

Key tenses

Present SimplePast SimplePresent Perfect
I bet
he / she / it bets
I betI have bet
Present Continuous:I am beting Β Β·Β  he / she / it is beting

Grammar guide

The verb "bet" belongs to the AAA group β€” all three principal parts are identical: "bet" / "bet" / "bet". The spelling never changes, whether you use it in the present tense, past simple, or as a past participle in a perfect or passive construction.

Use "bet" in the present to describe habits, facts, or scheduled events: "We bet the figures every quarter." The same form serves as the past simple for completed actions: "They bet the budget before noon." With auxiliary verbs it functions as the past participle: "She has already bet her quota." Because all three forms look the same, an auxiliary (have, has, had) or a past-time marker (yesterday, last year) provides the tense signal.

AAA verbs are mostly short, high-frequency words ending in -t or -d, such as cost, cut, hit, hurt, let, put, set, and spread. Because they never inflect, you only need to learn one spelling. The difficulty is that context β€” an auxiliary verb, a time adverb, or the surrounding narrative β€” must indicate which tense is intended.

Quick-reference rule: when "bet" follows have, has, or had, it is acting as a past participle ("she has bet the price twice"); when it follows did not or appears in a question with did, it is the infinitive in a past-tense structure ("did they bet it correctly?"); in all other uses it is most likely present simple or a base-form infinitive.

Quick quiz

Which sentence is correct?

Conjugation pattern

All three forms are identical β€” nothing to memorise beyond the base form.

Verbs with the same pattern

bet β€” bet β€” bet | English Irregular Verb Β· English Road