Hadst

/hædst/ verb

Definition

Archaic second-person singular past tense of 'have,' used in older English (as in 'thou hadst').

Etymology

Old English hæfde with archaic '-st' ending marking second person. Found in the King James Bible and Shakespeare, it's the formal 'you had' of early Modern English.

Kelly Says

Reading 'thou hadst' in Shakespeare unlocks his language—'hadst' is how Elizabethans made verbs grammatically agree with the formal 'thou,' a system we lost when we simplified English pronouns.

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