preterite
/ˈpɹɛtəɹɪt/
preterite adjective: showing an action at a determined moment in the past.
Adjective
preterite (not comparable)
- Showing an action at a determined moment in the past.
- The Dravidian preterite tense is ordinarily formed, like the present, by annexing the pronominal signs to the preterite verbal participle.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...
- Belonging wholly to the past; passed by.
- 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.1890, James Russell Lowell, “Cambridge Thirty Years Ago”, in The Writings of James Russell Lowell, Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, →OCLC, page 52
- Boas, Benedict, Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Murdock, Evans-Pritchard, Griaule, Levi-Strauss, to keep the list short, preterite, and variegated, […]1988, Clifford Geertz, Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author, page 19
- Synonyms:
- bygone
Noun
preterite (plural preterites)
- A grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past.
- 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.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
- 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.1994, Dieter Stein, Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Towards a Standard English: 1600-1800, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 115
- Synonyms:
- grammatical tense
preterite meaning in Tamil, Malayalam and Arabic
preterite in Tamil
- இறந்தகாலச்சொல்
preterite in Malayalam
- അതിരുകടന്ന വൃഥാഭിമാനം കാണിക്കുന്ന
preterite in Arabic
- showing an action at a determined moment in the past
- المَاضَي التّامّ al-māḍi at-tam
Synonyms of preterite
Forms of preterite
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| alternative form | preterit |
| alternative form | praeterite |
| alternative form | præterite |
| alternative form | pret. |
| Noun | |
| plural | preterites |
Origin of preterite
From Middle English preterit, from Old French preterit (13th century), from Latin praeteritum (as in tempus praeteritum (“time past”)), the past participle of praetereō (“to go by, go past”), itself from praeter (“beyond, before, above, more than”) (comparative of prae (“before”)) + itum (the past participle of eō (“to go”)).
Words formed from preterite
Questions about preterite
- What does preterite mean?
- Preterite means showing an action at a determined moment in the past.
- What is preterite in Tamil?
- Preterite in Tamil is இறந்தகாலச்சொல். See Preterite meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is preterite?
- Preterite can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce preterite?
- Preterite is pronounced /ˈpɹɛtəɹɪt/.
Words near preterite in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: preterite (page history and authors); preterite (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); preterite (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-preterite.wav.
Cite this entry: “preterite.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/preterite. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.