Question

What is the past tense of the verb “to strive”?

Answer 1

Hint: Verbs are words that refer to an action or an event that is occurring in the present, or has occurred in the past or might occur in the future. All these different time frames where the action is taking place can be indicated by using different forms of a verb; i.e. present, past, participle, etc.

Complete answer:
A "Regular Verb" is a verb that follows the usual pattern of adding the suffix ‘s’ for third-person singulars and ‘ed’ for simple past tense or past participle form. For e.g.

Simple present	Present 3rd person	Past	Past participle
BakeStart Pick	BakesStarts Picks	BakedStarted Picked	BakedStarted Picked

A verb that does not create the past tense and the participle form according to the above-given pattern are known as irregular verbs.

Simple present	Present 3rd person	Past	Past participle
Sing Hang Eat Strive	SingsHangs Eats Strives	Sang HangedAte Strove	Sung Hung EatenStriven

Strive is an irregular verb that does not follow the defined rules of the English conjunction.
The past tense of the word ‘strive’ is ‘strove’; very similar to ‘drive’ whose past tense is ‘drove’. On the other hand, ‘Strived’ is a mistaken past tense conjugate form of ‘strive’. 

People are confused between strived or strove when it comes to writing the past tense of the verb “to strive”. But ‘strived’ has also been used very frequently, hence it is also accepted as a correct past tense form.

‘To strive’ means to work hard for something. For instance: A sportsman may be looking for a new personal record in a marathon. Someone who strove to do something has worked hard to get it in the past.

Therefore, grammatically both “strived” and “strove” are correct.

Note: Just like the past tense can be either strove or strived; the past participle can be either striven or strived. Example: “She has strived for years to reach this position”. “She has striven for years to reach this position”. All these are grammatically correct but it depends on the end-user how he/she wants to depict it.