grew
- 1Past tense of grow.
The seedlings grew quickly once the spring rains arrived.
The company grew from a single shop into a national chain.
Note
A strong-verb past that shifts its vowel instead of adding -ed. Old English grēow, past of grōwan, goes back to a Proto-Germanic form built by reduplication. Grew covers every use of grow: the linking one (she grew tired), the gardener's transitive one (they grew tomatoes), and plain increase. It stands alone in the simple past. After has or had, standard English uses grown, not grew, which is the nonstandard participle.
- 2Past participle of grow. Nonstandard: the standard form is grown.
She's grew real close to her cousins over the past few summers.
By autumn the vines had grew right over the back fence.
Note
Here the past-tense form moves into the participle's slot after has or had: had grew where standard English has had grown. It belongs to casual speech and is marked nonstandard. In writing it reads as a mistake unless you are deliberately giving a speaker's own voice. The test is simple: when a form of have comes before it, the standard choice is grown.
- 3Alternative form of grue (to shudder with fear).
Note
A homograph with no link to growing. This grew is a spelling of grue, an archaic verb for shuddering with fear. Its relative, the noun grue, meaning a shiver or shudder, is marked Scottish. It takes regular endings of its own: grews, grewing, grewed. So a form like grewed points to dread, not to anything getting bigger.
grew is a form of grow
grow, verb: To become larger or increase in size or amount. Full entry
- Spelling
- grow → grew: irregular (no -ed)
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Origin
From Middle English grew, from Old English grēow, the first and third person past tense of grōwan ("to grow"). It traces back through West Germanic and Proto-Germanic forms as a reduplicated past tense of *grōaną.