simple past

English

Etymology

“Simple” because the tense is formed without any auxiliary verb.

Noun

simple past (plural simple pasts)

1. (grammar) A tense used to describe something that happened in the past, formed by the inflection of a single word, without any auxiliary verb such as be or have.

Synonyms

• (grammar): preterite, preterit

Coordinate terms

• (grammatical tense): past perfect, past continuous, past perfect continuous, past participle, present, present perfect, present continuous, present perfect continuous, present participle, future simple, future perfect, future continuous, future perfect continuous, future-in-the-past simple, future-perfect-in-the-past

Translations

the simple past tense

• Azerbaijani: şühudi keçmiş
• Danish: præteritum (da), datid (da)
• Dutch: onvoltooid verleden tijd (nl) m
• Esperanto: estinteco (eo), estinto, preterito (eo)
• Finnish: imperfekti (fi), preteriti (fi)
• French: passé (fr) m, imparfait (fr) m, passé simple (fr) m (these terms have slightly different meanings in French, they are not synonyms)
• German: Präteritum (de) n
• Greek: αόριστος (el) m (aóristos)
• Hungarian: egyszerű múlt
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: dema borî (ku) f

• Norman: sîmpl'ye pâssé m
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: preteritum n

  Nynorsk: preteritum n

• Persian: ماضی ساده (mâzi-e sâde), گذشته ساده (gozašte-ye sâde)
• Portuguese: pretérito perfeito (pt) m, pretérito perfeito simples (pt) m; (the English simple past): passado simples (pt) m, pretérito simples m
• Russian: просто́е проше́дшее вре́мя n (prostóje prošédšeje vrémja), проше́дшее вре́мя (ru) n (prošédšeje vrémja)
• Spanish: pretérito (es)
• Swedish: preteritum (sv) (imperfekt (sv))
• Turkish: geçmiş zaman (tr), -di'li geçmiş zaman, geçmiş zamanın hikayesi

Further reading

• simple past on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• preterite on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• palimpsest, past simple