passé composé

[pah-sey kawn-poh-zey]

noun

French.

1. a grammatical construction of French consisting of the present tense of an auxiliary, either avoir or être, followed by a past participle and corresponding in function to both the English present perfect and the English simple past tenses.

Word History and Origins

Origin of passé composé¹

Literally, “compound past”

Example Sentences

My French I class back in Florida did not prepare me for Madame O’Malley, who skipped the “how was your summer” pleasantries and dove directly into something called the passe compose, which is apparently a verb tense.

Read more on Literature

But those who know the passé composé from the plus-que-parfait still have plenty of value at the Tour.

Read more on New York Times