After reading this discussion, I’d like to know what example sentences distinguish the meaning of the words lept, leapt, and leaped from each other?
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After reading this discussion, I’d like to know what example sentences distinguish the meaning of the words lept, leapt, and leaped from each other?
The past tense of leap is today rightly spelt leapt when pronounced with the DRESS vowel rather than with the FLEECE vowel, so /lɛpt/ rhyming with kept.
In contrast, lept is an obsolete spelling of leapt seldom seen since the 1500s, back before the standardization of English spelling.
Consider:
bleed > bled
breed > bred
creep > crept
dream > dreamt
feed > fed
feel > felt
kneel > knelt
lead > led
lean > leant
meet > met
plead > pled
sleep > slept
speed > sped
sweep > swept
weep > wept
As you see, the sound change is more consistent than the spelling, but leapt is not wholly without precedent in other forms even when spelt that way.