🇺🇸
/eɪt/
🇺🇸
/eɪt/
🇬🇧
/eɪt/
🇬🇧
/eɪt/
Past Tense
ate
Past Participle
eaten
Gerund
eating
3rd Person
eats
Ate is the simple past tense of the verb 'eat' — it describes the action of consuming food that happened at a specific time in the past. For example, if you finished your sandwich an hour ago, you can say 'I ate it' — no fancy grammar needed, just a bite-sized piece of English history!
She ate all the cookies before dinner.
We ate at a cozy Italian restaurant last night.
The dog ate my homework — and yes, I'm using that as an excuse.
They ate silently while watching the sunset.
I ate three slices of pizza and immediately regretted it.
eat
Comes from Old English 'etan', a strong verb meaning 'to consume food'. It is a native Germanic root (not borrowed), with cognates in Old Norse 'eta', Gothic 'itan', and Proto-Germanic '*etaną'. Core meaning centers on ingestion for nourishment. Examples include eat, ate, eaten, eating, eater, uneaten, overeat.