present tense

Also present

[prez-uhnt tens]

noun

Grammar.

1. (in English) the simple present.

2. any verb formation or construction used to express an action or state occurring in the present, such as, in English, the present progressive.

3. an instance or form of a specific verb expressing an action or state that occurs in the present.

Word History and Origins

Origin of present tense¹

First recorded in 1400–50

Example Sentences

The author relates her principal story, of the two sisters, in the present tense, while keeping historical context in the past—an idiosyncratic choice that, fortunately, doesn’t derail the book’s narrative momentum.

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Smith is visibly, almost geologically older in what appears to be the film’s present tense, an interview in her room at the Chelsea Hotel.

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My son stands for — and I speak of him in present tense — everything that’s beautiful about life and the gifts that we all derive from our source.

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Morgan Jerkins has given us something magnificent in her second novel, “Zeal“: a sweeping historical novel that plants itself firmly in the present tense of American reckoning.

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She structures her narrative chronologically, conveyed in present tense, newsreel-style, evoking the Pacific Northwest’s woodsy tang and bland suburbia.

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