Past Tense of “forbid”
The past tense of forbid is forbade/forbad; the past participle is forbidden.
Why “forbid” behaves this way
"Forbid" is built from the Old English prefix "for-" (here carrying a negative or prohibitive force, as in "forget" and "forsake") plus "bēodan," meaning "to command" or "to offer" — so "forbid" originally meant something close to "to command against" or "to order away." The exclamation "God forbid," preserved from centuries of religious usage, is one of the few places the bare present-tense subjunctive form "forbid" (rather than "forbids") survives in everyday speech — a fossilized grammatical structure most speakers use instinctively without recognizing it as a subjunctive at all.
This matters because two entirely distinct Old English ancestors both collapsed into modern "bid": the strong verb "bēodan" (to command, offer) and the separate weak verb "biddan" (to ask, request). Modern "bid" inherited a blended, confusing conjugation from both ancestors — "bid/bid" for auctions and requests, but "bade/bidden" surviving mainly in older or formal usage tied to commanding. "Forbid," however, descends cleanly from the commanding strand only, which is why its irregular pattern ("forbade/forbidden") is more stable and consistent than plain "bid" ever became.
The common confusion
The pronunciation of "forbade" causes real, ongoing disagreement even among careful speakers: dictionaries list both /fərˈbæd/ (rhyming with "had") and /fərˈbeɪd/ (rhyming with "made") as acceptable, and neither is objectively more correct — this is a rare case where a single spelling genuinely supports two standard pronunciations. Register, not grammar, is really doing the work here — which is why "forbidden" so often outlives "forbade" as a standalone descriptive word long after the sentence that produced it is forgotten.
How it's actually used
"Forbid" reads as noticeably more formal and absolute than "not allow" or "disallow," which is why it shows up heavily in legal, religious, and official rule-setting language rather than everyday conversation, where "you're not allowed to" is far more common. Legal register prefers "prohibited" over "forbidden" in contracts and statutes, reserving "forbid/forbidden" more for interpersonal, moral, or parental authority ("her parents forbade her from going") than for impersonal bureaucratic rules, a subtle register distinction that shapes which word a careful writer reaches for. Parents and teachers use the active "forbid/forbade" constantly in reported speech ("she forbade him to go"), while institutional writing prefers the passive "is forbidden" precisely because it removes the sense of a specific authority figure giving the order.
Across the tense system
"Forbidden" as a participle has drifted into a standalone adjective in its own right ("forbidden fruit," "forbidden territory"), used constantly outside of any verb construction, while "forbade" stays strictly tied to the finite past-tense verb form. "Forbidden" functioning as a pure adjective ("forbidden fruit," "a forbidden romance") now accounts for a huge share of the word's total use, arguably outnumbering its use as an actual verb participle in casual writing and literary titles. Style guides note that "forbid" pairs more naturally with abstract or moral prohibitions, while "ban" and "prohibit" handle bureaucratic and legal ones, a distinction worth keeping in mind when choosing among near-synonyms.
Common real mistakes
A common real error is using "forbid" with "to" in the wrong construction — the correct pattern is "forbid someone to do something" or "forbid someone from doing something," and mixing the two into "forbid someone from to leave" is a frequent learner mistake; native speakers also sometimes drop the required object entirely ("it is forbid" instead of "it is forbidden"), confusing the participle with the base form.
Examples
- The rules forbade any outside food in the venue.
- She has forbidden her children from using the pool alone.
- He forbade them from entering the abandoned building.
- Smoking is forbidden throughout the hospital grounds.
- The law forbids discrimination on the basis of age.
- They were forbidden from discussing the case publicly.
- Her doctor forbade any strenuous activity for a month.
- The contract forbids either party from disclosing terms.
- God forbid anything should go wrong on the trip.
- Her parents forbade her from attending the party.
Memory trick
Picture the sentence "the law forbade it, and it stayed forbidden": that pairs the two irregular forms in one memorable line, with "forbade" for the moment of the rule and "forbidden" for its lasting state.