used to respond vs used to responding

Both phrases are correct, but they are used in different contexts. 'Used to respond' is used when referring to a specific action in the past that was habitual or customary, while 'used to responding' is used when describing a general tendency or habit in the past.

Last updated: March 25, 2024

used to respond

This phrase is correct and commonly used when referring to a specific action in the past that was habitual or customary.

This phrase is used to describe a past action that someone habitually or customarily did in response to a particular situation or stimulus.

Examples:

He used to respond to all emails within an hour.
She used to respond to criticism with a smile.

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The Head of Mission shall be responsible for the management of a warehouse stocking used equipment that may also be used to respond to urgent requirements in CSDP deployments.
Or, to put it another way: the objective, as stated in the report itself, is that "the right means of communication can be used to respond to the European public's national and cultural features".
In addition, the Trans-European Transport Network projects and the Marco Polo project will be used to respond to the growth of maritime transport and at the same time render it sustainable.
Council conclusions on the budget guidelines for 2010, your rapporteur is of the firm opinion that Union's ambitions cannot be fulfilled with such a tight budget and that available margins should be used to respond to EU's priorities.
Notes that cohesion policy has become an essential element in the European Economic Recovery Package, being a public policy which can be used to respond to the crisis and address short-term demand stimulation while at the same time investing in long-term growth and competitiveness;
Improving the provisions promoting a work-life balance is one of the ways which can be used to respond to this demographic decline.
It is therefore proposed that a higher-than-proportional share of the conditional balances be used to respond to some of the unmet international ACP-EC commitments.
In recent decades Structural Adjustment Programmes have been used to try and respond to the call for economic development.
All too often, it is either a legal obligation that companies enter into without really thinking about the added value of such actions and without any real long-term policy; or a formula used in an emergency to respond to social problems.
Air borders: the infrastructure used for border checks responds to the requirements of the Schengen Borders Code and equipment for 1st and 2nd line is mainly sufficient and modern.
The procedure used to test the market must be made completely transparent; to this end, it will be necessary to listen to the arguments of the interested parties and to respond to their observations.
And if that used to be a purely Bulgarian problem, today it emerges as a problem at the European level as well because Bulgaria is entitled to quite substantial subsidies to respond to disasters occurring in the forests.
The information to be entered in the optional fields is used to improve the service itself and communications, to respond in the best possible manner to the needs of users, and to keep them informed of special offers and new products.
Targretin is used in patients who have an advanced disease and have failed to respond to at least one other treatment.
It is used in patients who failed to respond to or cannot use other systemic (whole-body) treatments for psoriasis, including ciclosporin, methotrexate and PUVA (psoralen ultraviolet-A).
It is used in patients who have failed to respond to or cannot take other systemic (whole-body) treatments for psoriasis, including ciclosporin, methotrexate and PUVA (psoralen ultraviolet-A).
For the Commission to respond to a written question of mine on 29 November 2002 simply by saying this type of technology needs to be used with caution is not good enough.
Atriance is used when patients have failed to respond to, or have stopped responding to at least two types of chemotherapy.
Since this is clearly contrary to Directive 86/609/EEC on the protection of animals used for experimental and other scientific purposes, could the Commission explain how it plans to respond?
The licence had used the term 'adaptive management' to make it possible to respond if damage occurs (by analogy with the 'hand-on-the-tap' principle for gas extraction, which allows extraction to be halted when that is found to be necessary).

Alternatives:

was used to responding
would respond
was accustomed to responding
had the habit of responding
had the tendency to respond

used to responding

This phrase is correct and commonly used when describing a general tendency or habit in the past.

This phrase is used to talk about a general tendency or habit in the past, rather than a specific action. It describes the behavior that someone was accustomed to doing regularly.