What is the past participle of “wake”?

Answer: The verb wake is an irregular verb. Most regular verbs form their past participles by adding -ed (like cook → cooked), but irregular verbs change in different ways. Since wake is irregular, the past participle of wake ends with -en, which is common for many irregular verbs. So, the correct past participle is woken, not waked (which is rare).

Complete Answer: 

A participle is a special verb form that works like both a verb and an adjective. In English, there are only two participle forms: the present participle and the past participle. Present participles always end in -ing (like cooking, running) and are used in continuous tenses. Past participles, on the other hand, often end in -ed, or take special endings like -en, -t, -n, or -d, especially for irregular verbs.

The past participle is used to form perfect tenses (like have cooked, has eaten) and also acts like an adjective (e.g., sliced bread, broken chair). For regular verbs, we simply add -ed to the base form. For example, cook → cooked (past tense and past participle are the same). But irregular verbs do not follow this rule.

The verb “wake” is an irregular verb. That means it doesn’t just take -ed at the end. Instead, it changes form in a unique way. The past participle of wake is “woken”, which ends in -en. This follows the common pattern for many irregular verbs like break → broken, choose → chosen, wake → woken.

Let’s look at examples:

• If you wake up early, we can go jogging. (base form)
• I woke up late yesterday. (past tense)
• I have woken up early every day this week. (past participle)

In these examples, “woken” is used with helping verbs (has, have, had) to form perfect tenses.

Note: In very few cases, especially in American English, “waked” might be used, but it is rare and usually not preferred in modern English. “Woken” is the correct and commonly accepted form.

To summarize: Since “wake” is irregular and ends in -en in its participle form, the correct past participle is “woken”. Always use “woken” with has, have, or had in perfect tenses.

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