preterite

English

Examples
Preterite: I went Present: I go Future: I will go

Alternative forms

• preterit (US)
• praeterite
• præterite (archaic)
• (abbreviation, grammar): pret.

Etymology

From Middle English preterit, from Old French preterit (13th century), from Latin praeteritum (as in tempus praeteritum (“time past”)), the past participle of praetereō (“I go by, go past”), itself from praeter (“beyond, before, above, more than”) (comparative of prae (“before”)) itum (the past participle of eō (“I go”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɹɛtəɹət/, /ˈpɹɛtəɹɪt/

Adjective

preterite (not comparable)

1. (grammar, of a tense) Showing an action at a determined moment in the past.
   • 1913 [1856], Robert Caldwell, edited by J.L. Wyatt and T. Ramakrishna Pillai, A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian, or, South-Indian Family of Languages, 3rd edition, London: Kegan Paul, →OCLC, page 496:

     The Dravidian preterite tense is ordinarily formed, like the present, by annexing the pronominal signs to the preterite verbal participle.

2. Belonging wholly to the past; passed by.
   • 1890, James Russell Lowell, “Cambridge Thirty Years Ago”, in The Writings of James Russell Lowell, Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, →OCLC, page 52:

     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.

   • 1988, Clifford Geertz, Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author, page 19:

     Boas, Benedict, Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Murdock, Evans-Pritchard, Griaule, Levi-Strauss, to keep the list short, preterite, and variegated, […]

Synonyms

• (belonging wholly to the past): bygone, foregone; see also Thesaurus:past

Translations

showing an action at a determined moment in the past

• Bulgarian: минал (bg) (minal)
• Catalan: pretèrit
• Dutch: in de verleden tijd, in het preteritum
• Estonian: üldminevik
• French: du passé
• Greek: παρωχημένος (el) (parochiménos)
• Japanese: (adnominal) 過去の (ja) (かこの, kako no), 過去時制の (かこじせいの, kako-jisei no); (for Spanish grammar) 点過去の (てんかこの, ten-kako no)
• Latin: praeteritus
• Polish: przeszły (pl) m
• Portuguese: pretérito (pt) m
• Russian: прете́рит (ru) m (pretérit), проше́дшее повествова́тельное n (prošédšeje povestvovátelʹnoje)
• Spanish: pretérito (es)

Noun

preterite (plural preterites)

2. (grammar) A grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past.
   • 1772, John Mair, A Radical Vocabulary, Latin and English, Edinburgh: A. Murray, and J. Cochran, for A. Kincaid & W. Creech, and J. Bell, →OCLC, page 101:

     When simple verbs redouble the preterite, the compounds drop the first syllable, as: Pello, pĕpŭli, to drive away, to beat back; Repello, rĕpŭli, and not rĕpĕpŭli, to drive back, to repel.

   • 1994, Dieter Stein, Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Towards a Standard English: 1600-1800, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 115:

     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.

Related terms

• preterition
• preteritive
• preterite tense

Translations

preterite tense; simple past

• Bulgarian: минало време n (minalo vreme)
• Catalan: pretèrit m
• Danish: præteritum (da), datid (da)
• Dutch: onvoltooid verleden tijd (nl) m
• Esperanto: preterito (eo)
• Finnish: preteriti (fi)
• French: prétérit (fr) m
• German: Präteritum (de) n
• Greek: αόριστος (el) (aóristos)
• Hungarian: elbeszélő múlt (idő)
• Japanese: 過去 (ja) (かこ, kako), 過去時制 (かこじせい, kako-jisei)
• Latin: praeteritum n
• Norman: sîmpl'ye pâssé m
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: preteritum n

  Nynorsk: preteritum n

• Polish: czas przeszły m
• Portuguese: pretérito (pt) m
• Romanian: preterit (ro) n
• Russian: проше́дшее вре́мя (ru) n (prošédšeje vrémja), прете́рит (ru) m (pretɛ́rit)
• Serbo-Croatian: preterit (sh) m
• Spanish: pretérito (es)
• Swedish: preteritum (sv) n

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Interlingua: ^{(please verify)} preterite
• Italian: ^{(please verify)} preterito
• Korean: ^{(please verify)} 과거 시제 (ko) (gwageo sije)
• Latin: ^{(please verify)} praeteritum, ^{(please verify)} tempus praeteritum
• Mandarin: ^{(please verify)} 過去時／过去时 (zh) (guòqùshí), ^{(please verify)} 过去时 (zh) (guoqushi)

Anagrams

• tipteerer

Spanish

Verb

preterite

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of preterir combined with te