Formas del verbo
Forma base
/kɒst/
Past Simple
Past Participle
Frases de ejemplo
Forma base · cost
- Good quality shoes cost more but last longer.
Past Simple · cost
- The repairs cost twice as much as expected.
- He didn't cost anything at the meeting.
- Did you cost it before lunch?
- I cost it as soon as I possibly could.
Past Participle · cost
- The delay has cost the company millions.
- She has just cost the very same thing.
- By the time we arrived, they had cost everything.
- We have never cost anything quite like it.
Tiempos clave
| Presente Simple | Pasado Simple | Presente Perfecto |
|---|---|---|
I cost he / she / it costs | I cost | I have cost |
| Presente Continuo:I am costing · he / she / it is costing | ||
Guía gramatical
The verb "cost" belongs to the AAA group — all three principal parts are identical: "cost" / "cost" / "cost". 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 "cost" in the present to describe habits, facts, or scheduled events: "We cost the figures every quarter." The same form serves as the past simple for completed actions: "They cost the budget before noon." With auxiliary verbs it functions as the past participle: "She has already cost 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 "cost" follows have, has, or had, it is acting as a past participle ("she has cost 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 cost it correctly?"); in all other uses it is most likely present simple or a base-form infinitive.
Mini test
¿Qué oración es correcta?
Patrón de conjugación
Las tres formas son idénticas: no hay nada que memorizar más allá de la forma base.
Verbos con el mismo patrón