食う (kuu) conjugation
(male) (vulg.) to eat
食う (くう, kuu) is a godan verb. Godan verbs change their final kana up and down its column of the kana chart — the a-row for negatives, the i-row before ます, the e-row for potential and ば. 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 | 食う kuu | 食います kuimasu | The form you look up. Also the casual present and future. |
| Plain negative | 食わない kuwanai | 食いません kuimasen | “doesn’t / won’t”. From here it conjugates like an i-adjective. |
| Plain past | 食った kutta | 食いました kuimashita | The casual past — same ending as the te-form, with た/だ. |
| Plain past negative | 食わなかった kuwanakatta | 食いませんでした kuimasendeshita | “didn’t”. The negative past, still i-adjective-shaped. |
| Te-form | 食って kutte | — | The connector: requests, linking clauses, ~ている. |
| Progressive (~ている) | 食っている kutteiru | 食っています kutteimasu | “is ~ing”, or an ongoing resulting state. |
| Desire (~たい) | 食いたい kuitai | 食いたいです kuitaidesu | “want to ~”. Behaves as an i-adjective. |
| Volitional | 食おう kuou | 食いましょう kuimashou | “let’s ~” / “I think I’ll ~”. |
| Potential | 食える kueru | 食えます kuemasu | “can ~”. What you could do; the object often takes が. |
| Passive | 食われる kuwareru | 食われます kuwaremasu | “is ~ed”. Also the honorific and the suffering passive. |
| Causative | 食わせる kuwaseru | 食わせます kuwasemasu | Make or let someone do it. |
| Causative-passive | 食わされる kuwasareru | 食わされます kuwasaremasu | Be made to do it — the long one. |
| Imperative | 食え kue | 食ってください kuttekudasai | Blunt order. Use ~てください in real life. |
| Prohibitive | 食うな kuuna | — | “don’t!” — dictionary form + な. |
| Conditional (~ば) | 食えば kueba | — | “if ~”. General rules and hypotheticals. |
| Conditional (~たら) | 食ったら kuttara | — | “if / when ~”. The everyday conditional. |
🔊 Tap any Japanese word to hear it spoken.
Why it conjugates this way
Godan verbs change their final kana up and down its column of the kana chart — the a-row for negatives, the i-row before ます, the e-row for potential and ば.
See the full rules on the verb conjugation guide.