past perfect

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noun Grammar.

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Origin of past perfect

First recorded in 1885–90

Words nearby past perfect

pastorate, pastorium, pastorship, pastose, past participle, past perfect, past progressive, pastrami, pastry, pastry blender, pastry brush

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use past perfect in a sentence

In their past calls for attacks on Western targets, AQAP has focused on putting bombs on planes, not revenge attacks.
U.S. Spies See Al Qaeda Fingerprints on Paris Massacre|Shane Harris, Nancy A. Youssef|January 8, 2015|DAILY BEAST
In the middle of all of that past suffering and present-day conflict, this Cosby bomb was dropped.
Phylicia Rashad and the Cult of Cosby Truthers|Stereo Williams|January 8, 2015|DAILY BEAST
I gotta say—I think this past year was pretty bad for music.
Coffee Talk with Fred Armisen: On ‘Portlandia,’ Meeting Obama, and Taylor Swift’s Greatness|Marlow Stern|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Many of those who have become cops in New York seem to have ceased to address such minor offenses over the past few days.
Shot Down During the NYPD Slowdown|Michael Daly|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST

RELATED: NYPD Salutes Murdered Officer Wenjian Liu (Photos) Police motorcycles rumbled past.
Funeral Protest Is Too Much for NYPD Union Boss|Michael Daly|January 5, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Truth is a torch, but one of enormous size; so that we slink past it in rather a blinking fashion for fear it should burn us.
Pearls of Thought|Maturin M. Ballou
The afternoon was a lovely one—the day was a perfect example of the mellowest mood of autumn.
Confidence|Henry James
Within the past thirty years civilization has rapidly taken possession of this lovely region.
Among the Sioux|R. J. Creswell
Without the former quality, knowledge of the past is uninstructive; without the latter, it is deceptive.
Pearls of Thought|Maturin M. Ballou
And I finished all with a brief historical account of affairs and events in England for about a hundred years past.
Gulliver's Travels|Jonathan Swift

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

the past perfect tense
a verb in this tense

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012