引き止める (hikitomeru) conjugation
to keep back, to prevent, to hold back
引き止める (ひきとめる, hikitomeru) is an ichidan verb. Ichidan verbs are the tidy ones: drop the final る and add the ending. Nothing inside the word ever changes. Every form below is tappable — hear it, then say it back.
Conjugation table
| Form | Plain (casual) | Polite (~ます) | When you use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dictionary / plain | 引き止める hikitomeru | 引き止めます hikitomemasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 引き止めない hikitomenai | 引き止めません hikitomemasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 引き止めた hikitometa | 引き止めました hikitomemashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 引き止めなかった hikitomenakatta | 引き止めませんでした hikitomemasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 引き止めて hikitomete | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 引き止めている hikitometeiru | 引き止めています hikitometeimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 引き止めたい hikitometai | 引き止めたいです hikitometaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 引き止めよう hikitomeyou | 引き止めましょう hikitomemashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 引き止められる hikitomerareru | 引き止められます hikitomeraremasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 引き止められる hikitomerareru | 引き止められます hikitomeraremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 引き止めさせる hikitomesaseru | 引き止めさせます hikitomesasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 引き止めさせられる hikitomesaserareru | 引き止めさせられます hikitomesaseraremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 引き止めろ hikitomero | 引き止めてください hikitometekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 引き止めるな hikitomeruna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 引き止めれば hikitomereba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 引き止めたら hikitometara | — | “if / when ~”. The everyday conditional. |
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Why it conjugates this way
Ichidan verbs are the tidy ones: drop the final る and add the ending. Nothing inside the word ever changes.
See the full rules on the verb conjugation guide.