Preterite
Definition, Meaning & Examples
Pronunciation /ˈpɹɛtəɹɪt/ · Part of speech adjective
Quick meaning: Preterite is an adjective meaning (grammar, of a tense) Showing an action at a determined moment in the past.
Meaning
(grammar, of a tense) Showing an action at a determined moment in the past.
More Meanings
- Belonging wholly to the past; passed by.
- (grammar) A grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past.
Example Sentences
The Dravidian preterite tense is ordinarily formed, like the present, by annexing the pronominal signs to the preterite verbal participle.
Boas, Benedict, Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Murdock, Evans-Pritchard, Griaule, Levi-Strauss, to keep the list short, preterite, and variegated, […]
Without leaving your elbow-chair, you shall go back with me thirty years, which will bring you among things and persons as thoroughly preterite as Romulus or Numa.
Nevertheless, a small amount of variation still exists in one area of standard English verbal morphology: the preterite and past participle forms of certain irregular verbs.
Word Forms
- preterit
- preterites
Synonyms for preterite
Depending on context, synonyms include past, bygone, foregone, preterit.
Related Words
Related dictionary entries include preterit, subjunctives, preteritive, past, preterital, pluterperfect.
Related Dictionary Tools
Sources & Attribution
FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0
Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.