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definitions

past perfect

noun Grammar.
  1. pluperfect.

Origin of past perfect

First recorded in 1885–90
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for past perfect

Historical Examples of past perfect

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

British Dictionary definitions for past perfect

past perfect

adjective
  1. 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
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