Verb forms
Base form
/fɪt/
Past Simple
Past Participle
Example sentences
Base form · fit
- These shoes fit me perfectly.
Past Simple · fit
- The dress fit her like a glove.
- I fit it as soon as I possibly could.
- We fit it together earlier this week.
- She fit without any hesitation.
Past Participle · fit
- The kitchen has been fit with new cupboards.
- We have never fit anything quite like it.
- He has fit it many times before.
- I have already fit it more than once.
Key tenses
| Present Simple | Past Simple | Present Perfect |
|---|---|---|
I fit he / she / it fits | I fit | I have fit |
| Present Continuous:I am fitting · he / she / it is fitting | ||
Grammar guide
The verb "fit" belongs to the AAA group — all three principal parts are identical: "fit" / "fit" / "fit". 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 "fit" in the present to describe habits, facts, or scheduled events: "We fit the figures every quarter." The same form serves as the past simple for completed actions: "They fit the budget before noon." With auxiliary verbs it functions as the past participle: "She has already fit 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 — an auxiliary verb, a time adverb, or the surrounding narrative — must indicate which tense is intended.
Quick-reference rule: when "fit" follows have, has, or had, it is acting as a past participle ("she has fit 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 fit 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 — nothing to memorise beyond the base form.
Verbs with the same pattern