Forgot
verbFailed to remember something, or left something behind unintentionally; the past tense of forget.
How to spell forgot
6 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce forgot
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does forgot mean?
- verbFailed to remember something, or left something behind unintentionally; the past tense of forget.
Forgot in a sentence
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He forgot his umbrella on the train this morning.
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She forgot to send the invoice before the deadline.
Where does forgot come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This is the simple past tense of 'forget', which comes from the Old English forgietan, meaning 'to lose remembrance of' or 'to fail to grasp in the mind'. It is built from the prefix for-, an old intensive that carried a sense of 'away', 'amiss', or 'completely', joined to gietan, an early verb meaning 'to get' or 'to grasp'. The literal idea was therefore to let something slip completely away from one's grasp, which is a vivid way of picturing memory loss. The same for- prefix survives in related verbs like 'forgive' and 'forbid', where it likewise signals an action turned away or undone. The word is thoroughly native Germanic stock and shares roots with the Dutch vergeten and the German vergessen, both of which still mean 'to forget'.
How the word is built
- for- (away, amiss, completely)
- got (past tense of get, meaning to grasp or obtain)
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