Had

Pronunciation

• IPA: /hæd/
• Rhymes: -æd

Verb

1. had

   (past of have)
• 1814, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park:About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton ....
2. (auxiliary) Used to form the pluperfect tense, expressing a completed action in the past (+ past participle).
• 2011, Ben Cooper, The Guardian, 15 Apr 2011:Cooper seems an odd choice, but imagine if they had taken MTV's advice and chosen Robert Pattinson?
3. (auxiliary, now rare) As past subjunctive: ‘would have’.
• 1499, John Skelton, The Bowge of Courte:To holde myne honde, by God, I had grete payne;
  For forthwyth there I had him slayne,
  But that I drede mordre wolde come oute ....
• 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays, II.4:Julius Cæsar had escaped death, if going to the Senate-house, that day wherein he was murthered by the Conspirators, he had read a memorial which was presented unto him.
• 1849, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam, 24:If all was good and fair we met,
  This earth had been the Paradise
  It never look’d to human eyes
  Since our first Sun arose and set.

Related terms

• be had

Usage notes

Had, like that, is one of a very few words to be correctly used twice in succession in English, e.g. He had had several operations previously.

Anagrams

• ADH
• AHD
• dah
• DHA