future tense
Americannoun
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future tenses
plural
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in English, the simple future.
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any verb formation or construction used to express an action or state that is to occur at a time after the present, such as, in English, the future perfect or future progressive tenses.
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an instance or form of a verb expressing an action or state that is to occur at a time after the present.
“I will go” is the first person singular future tense of “go.”
Find all the future tenses in the following paragraph.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of future tense
First recorded in 1550–60
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In post-interviews, contestants are asked to answer questions in past, present and future tense.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 1, 2023
The text next to an image of Halley’s Comet refers to its 1986 appearance in the future tense.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2023
"In previous reports, we've been largely talking about the impacts of climate in the future tense," Professor Emma Johnston, another report chief author, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2022
Many of us thought that by now we’d be looking at the virus in retrospect, instead of living in a kind of perpetually deferred future tense.
From New York Times ● Feb. 11, 2022
When the main action in a sentence takes place in the present or in a future tense, the verb that follows after is in the simple present: I start dinner after the guests arrive.
From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
