come

The verb "come" belongs to the rare ABA group: the base form and past participle are identical ("come" and "come"), while the past simple ("came") is the odd form out. Only a handful of common English verbs follow this pattern, which makes "come" easy to identify once you know the group.

Use the past simple "came" for a single completed action at a specific point in the past: "She came a personal best in last year's race." It stands alone as the main verb with no auxiliary required. Past-time markers — yesterday, last month, in 2019, an hour ago — accompany it naturally.

The past participle "come" — identical to the base form — always requires an auxiliary. It appears in: (1) present perfect constructions — "Have you ever come a marathon?"; (2) past perfect — "By the final lap, she had already come past three rivals"; (3) passive voice — "The route is come every spring." Because "come" looks exactly like the plain present tense, always check for an auxiliary verb (have, has, had, or a form of be) to determine the actual grammatical structure.

The ABA group is so small that it fits in one sentence: come–came–come, become–became–become, run–ran–run, and overcome–overcame–overcome. All four are closely related words built on the same roots. Once you know "come", the past participle comes free — the only form that requires separate memorisation is the irregular past simple "came".