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Irregular verb

drive

/draɪv/

Base
drive
Past simple
drove
Past participle
driven

Usage

drove names a single trip; driven needs have/has/had, as in have driven.

Meaning

  • to control and move a vehicle

Example

We have driven across the country twice.

She drove to the coast for the weekend.

He drove carefully through the snow.

Teaching note

Drive changes to drove in the simple past and driven as a participle, following the same broad vowel-and-n pattern as write and ride.

Common mistake

A common mix-up is ‘We have drove there before’, where drove incorrectly follows have.

Correction: Choose ‘We drove there last year’ for simple past and ‘We have driven there before’ for past experience.