Past Tense of “cast”
The past tense of cast is cast; the past participle is cast.
Why “cast” behaves this way
"Cast" was borrowed into English from Old Norse "kasta" (to throw) during the Viking settlement period, joining a small set of Norse loanwords, including "get" and "take," that filled gaps in Old English vocabulary. As a foreign borrowing absorbed relatively late, "cast" never fully adopted the native English "-ed" past-tense ending in most dialects, settling instead into the same zero-change pattern as "put" and "cut," whether by phonetic redundancy or simply by never regularizing at all.
"Cast" replaced or supplemented several native English verbs describing throwing, and its broad, flexible meaning — throwing a net, throwing dice, throwing light, or throwing an actor into a role — shows how thoroughly this one borrowed Norse verb came to dominate a whole semantic field in English, more so than most other Old Norse loanwords managed to do.
The common confusion
Since "cast" never changes shape, the real challenge lies elsewhere: the huge range of specialized senses the word covers — casting a fishing line, casting a vote, casting actors in a play, casting metal into a mold — pull the same four letters in genuinely different directions depending on which craft or context is being described.
How it's actually used
"Cast" in theater and film names the entire group of actors in a production ("the cast includes..."), a specialized noun sense distinct from the verb describing the act of selecting them. "Cast doubt on" and "cast a shadow over" are common figurative idioms describing something negatively affecting perception or mood, extending the literal sense of throwing into abstract, emotional territory. Metalworking preserves the most literal ancient sense of the verb — pouring molten metal into a mold, a process still called "casting" today exactly as it was in Old Norse. Fishing specifically distinguishes "casting" technique (the motion of throwing the line) from "reeling" (bringing the line back in), two precise, sequential technical terms anglers use constantly. "Miscast" (assign an unsuitable role to an actor) is a related compound verb built directly on this one, sharing the identical zero-change conjugation.
Across the tense system
"Cast" in the passive voice ("the roles were cast last month") is standard in entertainment journalism describing casting decisions, while the medical noun "cast" (a rigid support for a broken bone) is an entirely unrelated word derived from the same root but functioning as a completely separate noun rather than any tense of the verb. "Typecast," describing an actor repeatedly given the same kind of role, is a specialized entertainment-industry compound built directly on this verb, often carrying a mildly negative connotation of being creatively limited by past success. Fly-fishing instructors teach several distinct casting techniques by name (the roll cast, the overhead cast), each a precise, named variant of this verb's core action.
Common real mistakes
"Casted" is the main slip to watch for, a mistaken regularization that turns up especially in casual writing about sports ("broadcasted") or casting decisions. A separate, genuine confusion for learners is the sheer number of unrelated senses "cast" carries, since context alone determines whether a sentence is about voting, fishing, acting, or metalworking. A further point worth noting: "cast aside" (reject or discard something) and "cast about for" (search uncertainly for something) are two idioms extending the literal sense of throwing into figurative territory of rejection and searching, respectively, and shouldn't be confused with one another.
Examples
- She cast her vote early on election day.
- They have cast the same lead actor in three films now.
- He cast the fishing line far out into the lake.
- We had cast the statue in bronze months before the unveiling.
- Doubt cast a shadow over the entire proceedings.
- The director is casting for the new production this week.
- His remark cast doubt on the whole plan.
- The broken leg cast had to be removed after six weeks. (unrelated noun)
Memory trick
Group "cast" with "put" and "cut" as a zero-change verb borrowed originally from Old Norse, and remember its enormous semantic range — from throwing a fishing line to casting a vote to casting actors — all ultimately tracing back to one core idea of throwing or shaping.