What is "preterite"

Preterit \Pret"er*it\ (?; 277), a. [L. praeteritus, p. p. of praeterire to go or pass by; praeter beyond, by + ire to go: cf. F. pr['e]t['e]rit. See Issue.] [Written also preterite and pr[ae]terite.]

1. (Gram.) Past; -- applied to a tense which expresses an action or state as past.

2. Belonging wholly to the past; passed by. [R.]

   Things and persons as thoroughly preterite as Romulus or Numa.
   --Lowell.

mid-14c., "having to do with the past," from Old French preterit "past tense" (13c.) and directly from Latin praeteritum (as in tempus praeteritum "time past"), past participle of praeterire "to go by, go past," from praeter "beyond, before, above, more than" (see prae-) + itum, past participle of ire "to go" (see ion). Grammar sense is late 14c. The word also was a noun in Middle English meaning "past times" (late 14c.). Related: Preteritive. Preterite-present attested from 1813.

a. 1 (context grammar of a tense English) showing an action at a determined moment in the past. 2 Belonging wholly to the past; passed by. n. (context grammar English) The preterite tense, simple past tense: the grammatical tense that determines the specific initiation or termination of an action in the past.

n. a term formerly used to refer to the simple past tense [syn: preterit]

The preterite (in US English also preterit) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past. In general, it combines the perfective aspect (event viewed as a single whole; it is not to be confused with the similarly named perfect) with the past tense, and may thus also be termed the perfective past. In grammars of particular languages the preterite is sometimes called the past historic, or (particularly in the Greek grammatical tradition) the aorist. When the term "preterite" is used in relation to specific languages it may not correspond precisely to this definition. In English it can be used to refer to the simple past verb form, which sometimes (but not always) expresses perfective aspect. The case of German is similar: the Präteritum is the simple (non-compound) past tense, which does not always imply perfective aspect, and is anyway often replaced by the Perfekt (compound past) even in perfective past meanings.

Preterite may be denoted by the glossing abbreviation or . The word derives from the Latin praeteritum (the perfect passive participle of praetereō), meaning "passed by" or "past".