present tense
Americannoun
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(in English) the simple present.
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any verb formation or construction used to express an action or state occurring in the present, such as, in English, the present progressive.
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an instance or form of a specific verb expressing an action or state that occurs in the present.
Etymology
Origin of present tense
First recorded in 1400–50
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 21, 2025
“For the girls’ story, I just started writing in the present tense, and it seemed so fluid and immediate,” she says.
From Slate • Oct. 21, 2025
Walger struggled with “Lion” at first, until she landed upon the idea of using the continuous present tense as the “thread of beads” that holds together its nonlinear narrative.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 4, 2025
Unable to hold his children's bodies or be at their hurried burials, he still speaks of them in the present tense, his face motionless beneath the rolling tears.
From BBC • Feb. 26, 2024
The second principle is that backshifting is not mandatory, which means that violating the sequence-of-tense rules and keeping the reported content in the present tense is not always an error.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
