What does brung mean?
"Brung" is a nonstandard form of the verb "bring," serving as a past tense or past participle where standard English calls for "brought." For example, instead of saying "she brought the tools," a speaker might say "she brung the tools." The word is common in informal speech and appears frequently in regional dialects on both sides of the Atlantic, particularly in parts of the American South, Appalachia, and working-class British speech. Its existence is easy to understand: many high-frequency English verbs change their vowels to mark the past — sing/sang/sung, drink/drank/drunk, swim/swam/swum — and by analogy with those patterns, speakers extend the same treatment to "bring." Historically, however, "bring" belongs with verbs like "buy" and "catch," whose past forms end in -ought: brought. Because of this mismatch, "brung" is labeled incorrect in dictionaries and style guides, though it persists robustly in everyday spoken language. Writers should use "brought" in any formal context, while recognizing that "brung" carries a distinct regional and conversational flavor.
verb"Brung" is a nonstandard past tense and past participle of the verb "bring," used in place of the standard form "brought." It is common in informal speech and some regional dialects but is considered incorrect in standard English.
- Nonstandard past tense of 'bring': he brung it yesterday (instead of 'brought').
"He brung his guitar to the party, even though nobody had asked him to."
"She brung her famous potato salad to the family reunion, just like every year."
"I don't know who brung that stray cat into the house, but it's staying."
"Brung" is what happens when English speakers treat "bring" like it rhymes with "sing/sang/sung" — a perfectly logical pattern that grammar books simply refuse to bless.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of brung
"Brung" arises not from Old English but from analogy within Modern English. The verb "bring" descends from Old English "bringan," whose past tense was "brōhte" — the ancestor of today's "brought." Because many other common strong verbs form their past tense by changing the stem vowel (sing/sang/sung, drink/drank/drunk), speakers reanalyzed "bring" as belonging to that class, producing "brang" and "brung" by analogy. These forms are attested in dialect from at least the nineteenth century and remain widespread in informal speech, though they have never been accepted in standard usage.
How brung is actually used
"Brung" is widely heard in casual conversation and in many regional dialects across both Britain and the United States, but it is stigmatized in formal writing and educated speech. Standard usage requires "brought" for both the past tense and past participle. The form likely arose by analogy with irregular verbs such as sing/sang/sung and drink/drank/drunk, where the vowel changes between forms; "bring" actually follows the same pattern as "buy/brought" (a different class), so "brung" is an analogical innovation rather than a survival from Old English.
Easily confused with brung
"Brought" is the standard past tense of "bring" in English, while "brung" is a nonstandard dialectal or informal variant.