grew

UK /ɡruː/ US /ɡru/ Syllables: grew

Pronunciation

Verb A1 Beginner Neutral

The past form of "grow", meaning increased in size or age.

Grew is the past simple form of the verb grow. Use it for something that happened in the past: the child grew taller, the plant grew in the sun, the company grew quickly. The three forms to learn are grow, grew and grown. Grew is the past simple, as in it grew last year. Grown is the past participle and is used with have, has or had, as in it has grown since then. Do not write growed, which is not standard English. Grew means became bigger, older or stronger, and it can also mean began to be, as in the room grew dark. The opposite idea is shrank, the past tense of shrink. In the phrase grew up, it means became an adult or spent childhood somewhere.

"The plant grew several centimetres over the summer."

Meanings

The past simple of grow: became larger, older or stronger.
Became gradually, as in the room grew dark.

Example sentences

"The tree grew very tall."

Level A1, Meaning 1
"She grew up in a small town."

Level A2, Meaning 1
"The crowd grew louder."

Level B1, Meaning 2
"My English grew better every month."

Level A2, Meaning 1
"The company grew from five workers to fifty."

Level B1, Meaning 1

Synonyms and antonyms

Antonyms

shrank

Look-alikes and common mistakes

grown : Grown is the past participle. Use it with has, have or had, not by itself as the past simple.
growed : Growed is not standard English. The past simple of grow is grew.
grow : Grow is the base form, used for the present and the future, as in plants grow.
threw : Threw rhymes with grew but is the past of throw and has a different meaning.

Word family and forms

grow grown growing growth outgrow

Word partners

Words and phrases that often go with "grew".

grew up
grew quickly
grew taller
grew worse
grew louder
grew tired
grew out of
grew into

Origin

Grew comes from Old English greow, the past tense of growan, which is the verb we now spell grow. The form passed through Middle English grew into modern English. Grow is a Germanic word, and similar verbs exist in Dutch, German and Old Norse.

Checked against: Wiktionary, the free dictionary, Dictionary.com.

How to remember it

Say the three forms in a row: grow, grew, grown. The middle one is the past with no helper word, as in it grew.

Test yourself

Which word fits the gap? "The tree _____ very tall."

Answer: grew

In your own words, what does "grew" mean?