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Webster 1913 Edition


Preterit

Pret′er-it

(?; 277)
,
Adj.
[L.
praeteritus
, p. p. of
praeterire
to go or pass by;
praeter
beyond, by +
ire
to go: cf. F.
prétérit
. See
Issue
.]
[Written also
preterite
and
præterite
.]
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.

Pret′er-it

,
Noun.
(Gram.)
The preterit; also, a word in the preterit tense.

Webster 1828 Edition


Preterit

PRE'TERIT

,
Adj.
[L. proeteritus, proetereo; proeter, beyond, and eo, to go.] Past; applied to the tense in grammar which expresses an action or being perfectly past or finished, often that which is just past or completed, but without a specification of time. It is called also the perfect tense; as, scripsi, I have written. We say, 'I have written a letter to my correspondent;' in which sentence, the time is supposed to be not distant and not specified. But when the time is mentioned,we use the imperfect tense so called; as, 'I wrote to my correspondent yesterday.' In this use of the preterit or perfect tense, the English differs from the French, in which j'ai ecrit heir, is correct; but I have written yesterday, would be very bad English.

Definition 2024


preterit

preterit

English

Noun

preterit (plural preterits)

  1. (US) Alternative form of preterite

Adjective

preterit (not comparable)

  1. (US) Alternative form of preterite

Anagrams


Serbo-Croatian

Noun

preterit m (Cyrillic spelling претерит)

  1. preterite