had

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had

/hæd/
/həd/
/əd/
/hæt/

Rhymes with -æd

Where it comes from

From Middle English hadde (preterite), yhad (past participle), from Old English hæfde (first and third person singular preterite), ġehæfd (past participle), from Proto-Germanic *habdaz, past and past participle stem of *habjaną (“to have”), equivalent to have + -ed. Cognate with Dutch had, German hatte, Swedish hade, Icelandic hafði.

verb

participle, past simple past and past participle of have This morning I had an egg for breakfast.
auxiliary, followed by a past participle Used to form the past perfect tense, expressing an action that took place prior to a reference point that is itself in the past. I felt sure that I had seen him before.
archaic, auxiliary As past subjunctive: would have. Had I not known you were coming this evening, I'd have left at midday.

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: thought, given, spoken, said, already, used, proven, experienced, worked, looked, focused, featured, heard, required, needed, known

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Cite this

MLA

"had." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/had. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

had. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/had

Chicago

"had." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/had.

BibTeX

@misc{had_2026,
  title = {had},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/had},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}