Past
The past is the set of all
Grammar
In English
The past continuous tense refers to actions that continued for a period of time, as in the sentence "she was walking," which describes an action that was still happening in a prior window of time to which a speaker is presently referring. The past perfect tense is used to describe actions that were already completed by a specific point in the past. For example, "she had walked" describes an action that took place in the past and was also completed in the past.
The past perfects continuous tense refers to an action that was happening up until a particular point in the past but was completed.[4] It is different from the past perfect tense because the emphasis of past perfect continuous verbs is not on the action having been completed by the present moment, but rather on its having taken place actively over a time period before another moment in the past. The verb tense used in the sentence "She had been walking in the park regularly before I met her" is past perfect continuous because it describes an action ("walking") that was actively happening before a time when something else in the past was happening (when "I met her").
Depending on its usage in a sentence, "past" can be described using a variety of terms.
Other uses
Time |
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The word "past" can also be used to describe the offices of those who have previously served in an organization, group, or event such as, "past president," or, "past champions."[6] "Past" can also refer to something or someone being at or in a position that is further than a particular point.[7] For instance, in the sentence, "I live on Fielding Road, just past the train station," the word "past" is used to describe a location (the speaker's residence) beyond a certain point (the train station). Alternatively, the sentence, "He ran past us at full speed," utilizes the concept of the past to describe the position of someone ("He") that is further than the speaker.
The "past" is also used to define a time that is a certain number of
Nineteenth-century British author
Fields of study
The past is the object of study within such fields as time, life, history, nostalgia, archaeology, archaeoastronomy, chronology, geology, historical geology, historical linguistics, ontology, paleontology, paleobotany, paleoethnobotany, palaeogeography, paleoclimatology, etymology and physical cosmology.
See also
References
- ^ "past" (web article). Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com. Archived from the original on 26 June 2018. Retrieved 25 June 2018.
- ^ Christian, David. "Record Keeping and History: How We Chronicle the Past" (web article). www.khanacademy.org. Khan Academy. Archived from the original on 26 June 2018. Retrieved 25 June 2018.
- ^ "Past" (Web). Merram-Webster.com. n.d. Archived from the original on 24 July 2018. Retrieved 24 July 2018.
- ^ a b "Verb tenses". English Oxford Living Dictionaries. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 26 June 2018. Retrieved 25 June 2018.
- ^ "past". oxforddictionaries.com. English Oxford Living Dictionaries. Archived from the original (Web) on 27 August 2018. Retrieved 27 August 2018.
- ^ a b c "past" (Web). Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on 24 July 2018. Retrieved 27 August 2018.
- ^ "past" (Web). dictionary.cambridge.org. Cambridge.org. Archived from the original on 27 August 2018. Retrieved 27 August 2018.
- ^ "half-past 12" (Web). EightPastFive. Archived from the original on Aug 31, 2023.
- ^ Collins, Philip (5 June 2018). "Charles Dickens" (Web). Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. Archived from the original on 18 June 2018. Retrieved 27 August 2018.
- ^ "A Christmas Carol" (Web). Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. 6 June 2014. Archived from the original on 27 August 2018. Retrieved 27 August 2018.