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All irregular verbsIrregular Verbs

rid

/rɪd/

eliminate

Verb forms

Base form

rid

/rɪd/

Past Simple

rid

Past Participle

rid

Example sentences

Base form · rid

  • These plants rid the air of toxins.

Past Simple · rid

  • We finally rid the garden of weeds.
  • She rid without any hesitation.
  • They rid it again the following morning.
  • He didn't rid anything at the meeting.

Past Participle · rid

  • The city has been rid of its old factories.
  • He has rid it many times before.
  • I have already rid it more than once.
  • She has just rid the very same thing.

Key tenses

Present SimplePast SimplePresent Perfect
I rid
he / she / it rids
I ridI have rid
Present Continuous:I am ridding  ·  he / she / it is ridding

Grammar guide

The verb "rid" belongs to the AAA group — all three principal parts are identical: "rid" / "rid" / "rid". 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 "rid" in the present to describe habits, facts, or scheduled events: "We rid the figures every quarter." The same form serves as the past simple for completed actions: "They rid the budget before noon." With auxiliary verbs it functions as the past participle: "She has already rid 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 "rid" follows have, has, or had, it is acting as a past participle ("she has rid 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 rid 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

rid — rid — rid | English Irregular Verb · English Road