drew
- 1Past tense of draw.
He drew the curtains before the film started.
The committee drew up a new set of guidelines last spring.
Note
A strong verb's past, made by changing the vowel rather than adding -ed: draw, drew, drawn. Drew stands alone, with no helper (she drew the blinds, he drew the bolt), while the perfect takes drawn: she had drawn the blinds. The pulling meanings carry over intact, as when a hand drew a handkerchief across a perspiring brow in Robert Barr's Lord Stranleigh Abroad (1913).
- 2Colloquial past participle of draw, used where standard English calls for drawn.
He said he had drew the map himself before they set out.
They had drew the curtains long before the storm hit.
Note
Here the past tense has moved into the participle's slot, so had drew does the work of had drawn. The pattern is a leveling, in which the simple past and the participle collapse onto a single form. It belongs to casual, nonstandard speech and marks the speaker sharply. In writing, in exams or in any formal setting, keep drew for the plain past and use drawn after have.
drew is a form of draw
draw, verb: To produce a figure, line, picture, or other representation using a pencil, pen, crayon, chalk, or similar instrument. Full entry
- Spelling
- draw → drew: irregular (no -ed)
Use it in a sentence
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