Verb forms
Base form
/set/
Past Simple
/set/
Past Participle
/set/
Example sentences
Base form · set
- I set my alarm for six every weekday.
Past Simple · set
- She set the table for dinner guests.
- They set it again the following morning.
- He didn't set anything at the meeting.
- Did you set it before lunch?
Past Participle · set
- A new world record has been set in the marathon.
- By the time we arrived, they had set everything.
- We have never set anything quite like it.
- He has set it many times before.
Common collocations
set a goal
to decide on an aim
set the table
to lay out plates for a meal
set an example
to behave so others can copy you
Key tenses
| Present Simple | Past Simple | Present Perfect |
|---|---|---|
I set he / she / it sets | I set | I have set |
| Present Continuous:I am setting · he / she / it is setting | ||
Grammar guide
The verb "set" belongs to the AAA group — all three principal parts are identical: "set" / "set" / "set". 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 "set" in the present to describe habits, facts, or scheduled events: "We set the figures every quarter." The same form serves as the past simple for completed actions: "They set the budget before noon." With auxiliary verbs it functions as the past participle: "She has already set 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 "set" follows have, has, or had, it is acting as a past participle ("she has set 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 set 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