Lexic.us

Definition of Past perfect tense

1. Noun. A perfective tense used to express action completed in the past. "`I had finished' is an example of the past perfect"

Lexicographical Neighbors of Past Perfect Tense

Literary usage of Past perfect tense

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. English Grammar: The English Language in Its Elements and Forms ; with a by William Chauncey Fowler (1855)
"FORMS FOR THE past perfect tense. § 330. The PAST PERFECT denotes past time that precedes some other past time. Of this there are two forms: 1. ..."

2. A Grammar of the German Language: Designed for a Thoro and Practical Study by George Oliver Curme (1922)
"C. In accordance with usage in older periods when there was no past perfect tense the past is often used for the past perfect: Wir waren mit Uechtritz ..."

3. First Latin Lessons by Harry Fletcher Scott (1922)
"The past perfect tense represents an act as completed at some specified or suggested time in the past. The English past perfect has the English auxiliary ..."

4. English Grammar Simplified: Its Study Made Easy by James Champlin Fernald (1916)
"past perfect tense. — I, he, we, you, they had loved; (called); (given). Here the auxiliary verb is in italic, and the participle of the principal verb in ..."

5. Handbook of Composition: A Compendium of Rules Regarding Good English by Edwin Campbell Woolley (1907)
"... containing perfect tense forms and past- perfect tense forms of write, rise, ride, and drive. XI. Remember the principal parts of the verb run: I run I ..."

6. Historical Outlines of English Syntax by Leon Kellner (1913)
"The Preterite instead of the past perfect tense. § 373. The relative time-relation of two events which take place in the past or in the future remains in ..."

7. A Grammar of the English Language: For the Use of Schools by William Harvey Wells (1848)
"The past perfect tense ? Examples. The future perfect tense ? Examples. Similar terms, corresponding with the signification of the tenses, are also employed ..."

Other Resources: