Forsake

The verb 'to forsake' (pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, 'forSAKE', IPA: /fə^rseɪk/) means 'to leave', with connotations of disappointment and betrayal. The Forsaken Mermaid is a ballad whose refrain, is sung by the mermaid,

Crying Oh, my lover's gone,

He's a youth I adore,

He's gone and I never

Shall see him no more.

The other current (albeit rather formal and literary) meaning of 'to forsake' is 'to renounce', or 'to give up'. "She has forsaken the wild behaviour of her youth."

'To forsake' is an irregular verb. Its forms are given here:

Base form	past tense	-ed participle	Remarks
forsake	forsook	forsaken

This is one of the "the 250 or so irregular verbs" listed in Quirk 1985. The list "contains most of the irregular verbs in present-day English ... but is not meant to be exhaustive, particularly with regard to derivative verbs." AWE has copied most of the entries in that list. The verb 'to forsake' belongs to Quirk's Class 4 B b