Past Tense of “weave”
The past tense of weave is wove; the past participle is woven.
Why “weave” behaves this way
"Weave" comes from Old English "wefan," a Class V strong verb in the same broad ablaut family as "speak/spoke/spoken" — its literal textile sense of interlacing threads into fabric follows the same three-stage vowel shift, e giving way to o, then o plus the strong-verb "-en." The word's ancient importance is reflected in "web" and "weft," both directly related nouns describing woven material and the specific threads used in weaving, showing how central this craft was to everyday Old English vocabulary. The modern computing term "web," as in "World Wide Web," borrows the same ancient image of interconnected threads, extending a millennium-old metaphor into an entirely new technological domain.
"Weave" developed a second, entirely separate figurative sense — moving in a winding, side-to-side pattern, as in "the driver weaved through traffic" — and crucially, this figurative sense takes the fully regular past tense "weaved," not "wove," a genuine sense-based split similar to "hanged"/"hung." This means "weave" is really two grammatically distinct verbs sharing one spelling: the literal textile sense (wove/woven) and the figurative motion sense (weaved/weaved). Linguists sometimes describe this kind of split as two separate lexemes sharing an accidental identical spelling, having drifted apart in conjugation even though they clearly share a common historical origin in the image of interlacing or winding paths.
The common confusion
The core confusion is exactly this sense-based split: "she wove a beautiful tapestry" (literal, irregular) versus "he weaved through the crowd" (figurative, regular) — mixing the two up, producing either "she weaved a tapestry" or "he wove through the crowd," is a genuine and common error precisely because most speakers aren't consciously aware the verb splits this way at all. Dictionaries themselves don't always flag this split prominently, which means many writers only discover the distinction after being corrected by an editor rather than learning it from a reference source directly.
How it's actually used
The literal sense extends figuratively as well, but in a different direction than the motion sense: "weaving" a story or a narrative together ("the author wove multiple plotlines into a single narrative") keeps the irregular textile-based conjugation, since this figurative use draws on the craft metaphor of interlacing threads rather than on the separate, unrelated motion metaphor of weaving through obstacles. Fashion and design writing also use the textile sense heavily and figuratively, describing patterns, textures, and even color schemes as "woven together," extending the craft metaphor into visual and aesthetic description well beyond literal fabric.
Across the tense system
In the perfect tense, the split holds firm: "she has woven this pattern for years" (textile/narrative sense) versus "he has weaved in and out of lanes all morning" (motion sense) — native speakers apply this distinction automatically and rarely make the swap, even though the rule is almost never explicitly taught. The passive voice appears constantly with the textile sense — "the rug was woven by hand over several months" — while the motion sense stays almost exclusively active, since weaving through obstacles is inherently something a subject does rather than something performed on it.
Common real mistakes
The most common error is applying "wove"/"woven" to the motion sense, producing the nonstandard "he wove through traffic" instead of the correct "weaved through traffic." A second, less common error is applying the regular "weaved" to the literal textile sense, producing "she weaved a rug" instead of the traditionally correct "wove a rug," though this reverse error is somewhat less jarring to most native ears than the first. A third error, seen in sports commentary, is switching between the two forms inconsistently when describing an athlete's movement, using "wove" in one sentence and "weaved" in the next for the exact same kind of motion. A fourth, minor error is confusing "weaved" with the unrelated "weeded" in fast typing, two words sharing several letters but describing entirely different activities.
Examples
- She wove a intricate pattern into the blanket.
- The driver weaved through the heavy afternoon traffic.
- The author has woven several storylines into one novel.
- He weaved unsteadily down the sidewalk after the long shift.
- Generations of weavers have woven this same traditional pattern.
- The cyclist weaved between the parked cars to avoid the crowd.
Memory trick
Split it cleanly by domain: reach for "wove"/"woven" for anything to do with actual thread, fabric, or a narrative craft, and reach for "weaved" for physical side-to-side motion, like a driver dodging obstacles — cloth and stories get "woven," bodies and vehicles get "weaved."