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past perfect

noun Grammar.

pluperfect.

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You may have read the word "simmer" in a recipe or two, but what does it really mean?
To cook in water that begins cold and then reaches a boil.
To stew in a sauce for a long time.
To cook in water, just below boiling temperature.
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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. 2020

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
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