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I see "forgo" used quite a bit, and "forgone" is quite common too. I can't say I've ever seen or heard of "forwent" and in fact, I had to look it up to make sure it even was a word at all. Is it used much? Is there an alternative that is more common?

I suspect it's more common to say, for example, "I decided to forgo treatment" rather than "I forwent treatment." But why?

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Apparently not. There are only four citations for it in the whole of the OED, the most recent being dated 1596. The reason for its being seldom used is the same reason why other words are seldom used: they serve no useful purpose.

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However, the past tense of forego is forewent, which seems to mean the same thing, and was used as recently as 1884! – Matt Эллен Apr 25 '12 at 8:27
@Matt - Are you sure "(they) was used as recently as 1884" is well-formed English. I'm precisely wondering if "(They) have been in use since 1884" were a better way to say what you wrote? – Carlo_R. Apr 25 '12 at 10:14
@Carlo_R. I mean "forewent was used as recently as 1884". So, no, it's not a better way. "As recently as 1884" should be read sarcastically. – Matt Эллен Apr 25 '12 at 10:16
@Barrie: I'm not sure about your interpretation of the OED (though I've done it myself). The complilers look for the earliest use of a word, but don't include the latest (obviously impossible); sometimes they say 'now obsolete' or similar, but otherwise you can't deduce much about current usage. – TimLymington Apr 25 '12 at 12:17
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@Fixee: I can't imagine anyone saying that, other than in jest. What you would hear, at least in BrEng, would be something like 'I didn't feel well yesterday, so I could't go jogging'. In any case, my point was a generic rather than a specific one: words fall out of use when they no longer serve a purpose. The extent to which 'forgo' has actually fallen out of use could be established only by examining a number of corpora. My belief that it has done so is entirely intuitive. – Barrie England Apr 27 '12 at 6:41
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