struck

IPA/strʌk/
KK[strˈʌk]IPA/strʌk/

struck — verb

  • struckpresent simple I / you / we / they
  • strucks3rd person singular
  • strucking-ing form
  • struckedpast simple

1. the simple-past and past-participle form of the verb strike — the only shape you

1.verbtransitive / intransitiveB1
Definition

the simple-past and past-participle form of the verb strike — the only shape you need for any meaning of strike once the action has already taken place, whether hitting, protesting, clock chiming, or a sudden thought.

Example

Nadia struck the ball so hard that it flew over the garden fence.

collocation: struck + ball / object — physical impact

The city's bus drivers struck for two weeks over unsafe working conditions.

intransitive: struck for + demand — labor protest

Common collocations
  • struck + object / ball / target
  • struck for + pay / conditions / rights
  • struck by + idea / thought / realization
  • struck + midnight / noon / twelve
Synonyms
  • hit

    overlaps with struck in the physical-impact sense but hit is also the present-tense form of a different verb

  • walked out

    equivalent to struck in the labor-protest sense but only works as a phrasal verb, not a single word

  • occurred to

    covers the 'sudden thought' meaning but uses a different grammatical construction (it occurred to + person)

Grammar Patterns

struck + object (hit)

struck for + demand (protest)

struck + time (clock)

was/were struck by + (idea / emotion)

Usage Note

Only used for past-tense and perfect-tense constructions of the verb strike. All meanings of strike — physical impact, labor protest, clock chiming, sudden realization, and so on — share this single irregular past form; there is no 'striked' in standard English.

Common Mistakes

He striked the ball into the goal.
He struck the ball into the goal.
Striked is not a correct past-tense form in standard English; struck is the only accepted form.

struck — adjective

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: verb/1

Struck is the past tense of strike and covers a wide range of actions, from physical impact (struck the ball) to sudden thoughts (an idea struck me). Hit is the closest everyday alternative for physical impact and is more common in casual conversation: 'He hit the ball' sounds natural, while 'He struck the ball' sounds slightly more formal or literary. Knocked focuses on a quick, deliberate tap or bump — 'She knocked the glass off the table' — and cannot replace struck in the labor-protest or clock-chiming senses. Occurred to replaces struck only in the 'sudden thought' meaning: 'An idea occurred to me' versus 'An idea struck me' — both are natural, but occurred to feels slightly more deliberate, while struck suggests the idea arrived more suddenly or forcefully.

struck ↗hit ↗knocked ↗occurred to

Common collocations

Nouns

Adverbs

Phrases

  • be struck by
  • struck + as
  • struck + that

Prepositions