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All irregular verbsIrregular Verbs

slit

/slɪt/

make a thin cut

Verb forms

Base form

slit

/slɪt/

Past Simple

slit

Past Participle

slit

Example sentences

Base form · slit

  • Tailors slit the fabric along the marked line.

Past Simple · slit

  • He slit the envelope open with a knife.
  • We slit it together earlier this week.
  • She slit without any hesitation.
  • They slit it again the following morning.

Past Participle · slit

  • The sack had been slit at the bottom.
  • He has slit it many times before.
  • I have already slit it more than once.
  • She has just slit the very same thing.

Key tenses

Present SimplePast SimplePresent Perfect
I slit
he / she / it slits
I slitI have slit
Present Continuous:I am sliting  ·  he / she / it is sliting

Grammar guide

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

slit — slit — slit | English Irregular Verb · English Road