Question

Which of the following is not an irregular verb?
A) Slay
B) Slew
C) Slain
D) Slip

Answer 1

Hint: Verbs are either regular or irregular depending on what pattern they follow in terms of their forms in different tenses. For e.g. love, loved and loved and the 1st, 2nd and 3rd forms of a regular verb. Whereas eat, ate and eaten are the 1st, 2nd and 3rd forms of an irregular verb.

Complete answer:
To find the correct answer, we must first check the different forms of the given options with respect to tenses. In this case, we will look for the verb which follows the general verb pattern i.e. play (present), played (past) and played (past participle).

Let us analyze the given options:
Option A) Slay – it is a verb that means to kill someone or an animal in a violent manner. Its present form is ‘slay’. The past form is ‘slew’ and the past participle form is ‘slain’. All three forms of this verb are different and do not follow a general pattern. Thus, it is an irregular verb. Hence, this option is incorrect.
Option B) Slew – It is the past tense of the verb ‘slay’ which means to kill a person or an animal violently. This word does not follow the general pattern of changing from the present (slay) to past (slew) form. As established from the above option, this word is also an irregular verb. Thus, this option is incorrect.
Option C) Slain – This word is the past participle form of the root verb ‘to slay’, which means to kill someone in a violent or brutal manner. As established earlier it does not follow a regular pattern and is hence an irregular verb. Thus, this option is wrong.
Option D) Slip – The word ‘slip’ means to lose your footing on the ground and slide involuntarily. Its present form is ‘slip’. Its past form is ‘slipped’ and its past participle form is ‘slipped’. This word follows the general pattern of adding –ed at the end of the root form to generate the past and past participle forms. Therefore, it is a regular verb and this option is correct.

Thus, the correct answer is Option (D) Slip.

Note: Other than being the past tense form of the word ‘slay’, ‘slew’ also means to turn or slip very violently. For e.g., Our car will be slew in a rain as heavy as this. The word ‘slew’ also refers to a large quantity of anything. For e.g. The excited kids asked a slew of questions to their new class teacher.