How did the -eth verb ending in English become -s/es?

Historical

In old English, the 3rd person singular present tense ending used to be -eth. How, then, did we end up with the modern verb ending -s/es? And when did this happen? It doesn't seem that English generally had a sound change "th" -> "s" at the end of words, so what happened to verbs?

Posted Dec 3, 2025, 2:00 AM UTC

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