What is "aorists"

Usage examples of "aorists".

Yet there are a very few strange forms in our corpus that look like aorists by their ending, but still show a long stem-vowel, e.

For now, just take my word that the verbs in the examples I cite are aorists.

But in the exercises I made for this course, I have used aorists for the English simple present, whereas I use the Quenya present tense for the English "is.

If so, we might have expected to see it in the formation of A-stem aorists as well.

The quote, reproduced above, apparently only deals with the infinitive form of primary verbs the ones that have aorists in -ë or with endings -i-.