froze
- 1Past tense of freeze.
Water froze on the inside of the windows during the storm.
The committee froze all spending until the audit was complete.
Note
One past form covers every use of freeze: water froze on the glass, a screen froze mid-call, a startled animal froze in place, a board froze a budget. It stands alone as the simple past. After have or be, standard English switches to frozen (the lake has frozen, the funds were frozen). the nonstandard participle is where froze crosses that line.
- 2Past participle of freeze. Nonstandard; the standard form is frozen.
The lake has froze over earlier than usual this year.
All the wash on the line had froze stiff overnight.
Note
Here froze does the work of frozen after have or had. Robert Boyle writes "I have froze a whole flask full of Water" in 1699, and William Clark Russell still uses it in Round the Galley Fire (1891). It is now colloquial and nonstandard, and George R.R. Martin puts it in a character's speech in A Game of Thrones. In careful writing use frozen, and keep froze for dialogue.
froze is a form of freeze
freeze, verb: To become solid as a result of low temperature, especially in the case of a liquid. Full entry
- Spelling
- freeze → froze: irregular (no -ed)
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