past perfect


noun Grammar.

Origin of past perfect

First recorded in 1885–90

Example sentences from the Web for past perfect

  • She is just past-perfect as a chaperone and she said that she thought a party of four girls would be ideal.

    Meg of Mystery Mountain |Grace May North

British Dictionary definitions for past perfect

past perfect
/ grammar /

adjective

denoting a tense of verbs used in relating past events where the action had already occurred at the time of the action of a main verb that is itself in a past tense. In English this is a compound tense formed with had plus the past participle

noun

  1. the past perfect tense
  2. a verb in this tense