play is the past tense of the verb “to play”. The past tense is a grammatical form in English that indicates an action or state that occurred in the past. Generally, the past tense of a verb is formed by adding a suffix to the base form of the verb. English belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Germanic languages, which is part of the Indo-European language family. It evolved from the language spoken by the Germanic tribes, specifically the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who immigrated to the British Isles from the European continent. English spread around the world through British colonization.