preterite


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past tense

The past tense is used to describe or indicate an action that began in the past. Depending on how we form the past tense, it might describe actions that happened or were completed in the past, were occurring at the same time as something else in the past, or continued to happen until or near the present time.
There are four forms of the Past Tense that can accomplish these tasks.
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pret·er·ite

or pret·er·it  (prĕt′ər-ĭt)
adj.
Of, relating to, or being the verb tense that describes a past action or state.
n.
1. The verb form expressing or describing a past action or condition.
2. A verb in the preterite form.
[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin (tempus) praeteritum, past (tense), neuter past participle of praeterīre, to go by : praeter, beyond, comparative of prae, before; see per in Indo-European roots + īre, to go; see ei- in Indo-European roots.]

preterite

(ˈprɛtərɪt) grammar or

preterit

n
1. (Grammar) a tense of verbs used to relate past action, formed in English by inflection of the verb, as jumped, swam
2. (Grammar) a verb in this tense
adj
(Grammar) denoting this tense
[C14: from Late Latin praeteritum (tempus) past (time, tense), from Latin praeterīre to go by, from preter- + īre to go]
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.preterite - a term formerly used to refer to the simple past tense
preterit
past tense, past - a verb tense that expresses actions or states in the past
Translations
preterit
preteritum

preterite

[ˈpretərɪt] N (Ling) → pretérito m

preterite

[ˈpretərɪt] n → prétérit m

preterite

, (esp US) preterit
adj verb → im Imperfekt; (in English) → im Präteritum; preterite form → Imperfekt-/Präteritumsform f; the preterite tense → das Imperfekt, das Präteritum
n → Imperfekt nt, → Präteritum nt; in the preterite → im Imperfekt/Präteritum

preterite

[ˈprɛt/ərɪt] n → (tempo) passato, preterito
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References in periodicals archive ?
It is usually understood as a D preterite 3rd singular of abalu 'to dry up', plus a subordinating -u.
Blood on the Wind and the Tablet of Destinies: Intertextuality in Anzu, Enuma elis, and Erra and Isum
However, the authors show surprise that Catalan uses the present paradigm of anar 'to go' to form the preterite, when there exist in English many expressions like So he goes and drives into a fence, a dramatic or graphic use of the present tense to allude to past events.
PRAGMATICS: COGNITION, CONTEXT AND CULTURE
This emphasis on the paradoxical flexibility and fixity of the past is both thematically and formally significant; the literary preterite tense used in this and most other realist novels constructs for the reader a contradictory sense of experiencing as present something that has ostensibly already happened, suggesting that the novel's events are already fixed in the past.
Constructing ordinary time in Adam Bede: The architectural structure of Eliot's realism
The presence of the perfect in the main clause, with preterite in the since clause represents the main pattern.
Benedicte Guillaume 2014. A Corpus-Based Study of Since-Clauses in Contemporary English
Or, even better, Why have we allowed the very futures of Latinidad to be colonized through an insistence on the narrative renderings of our stories, our lives, our Latinidades, in the preterite and imperfect tense of the historical imagination?
"I was a Ghetto Nerd Supreme": Science Fiction, Fantasy and Latina/o Futurity in Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
If Nicholas is simply reflecting on events, then the present tense interjections in the novel have no priority; they offer no point upon which to anchor the preterite. Past and present are not temporally distinct from each other in the world of the story.
"The shadow of this crime ... is over me yet": narrative discourse and the knowledge of evil in Barry Unsworth's Morality Play
In Spanish, data from a subset of Spanish infinitives (n = 511) taken from a Spanish database that contains over 175,000 word types (LEXESP; Sebastian-Galles, Marti, Carreiras, & Cuetos, 2000) revealed that 81% of the verbs were regular and 19% were irregular verbs in the Preterite.
Processing of Spanish Preterite regular and irregular verbs: the role of neighborhood density
In comparison with the Perfectum, which could have either preterite or perfectal meaning (roughly either "I made" or "I have made"), the Passe Compose therefore became more strongly, though still not exclusively, associated with perfectal meaning.
Disinterring and reinterring the dead: tense in French grammars, Du Vair, and Pasquier (c. 1550-1610)

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