Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of or being a verb tense used to express action completed before a specified or implied past time.
- adjective More than perfect; supremely accomplished; ideal.
- noun The pluperfect tense, formed in English with the past participle of a verb and the auxiliary had, as had learned in the sentence He had learned to type by the end of the semester.
- noun A verb or form in the pluperfect tense.
from The Century Dictionary.
- In music, augmented: said of intervals.
- Noting the time, or the expression of time, of an action occurring prior to another specified time: as, the pluperfect tense.
- noun In grammar, the pluperfect tense of a verb, or an equivalent verb-phrase: for example, Latin amaveram, English ‘I had loved.’
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective More than perfect; past perfect; -- said of the tense which denotes that an action or event was completed at or before the time of another past action or event.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective More than
perfect - adjective grammar Pertaining to action
completed before or at the same time as another - noun The
pluperfect tense - noun A
verb in this tense
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective more than perfect
- noun a perfective tense used to express action completed in the past
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word pluperfect.
Examples
-
Why in pluperfect hvell does he think we even have an economic meltdown?
-
Why in pluperfect hvell does he think we even have an economic meltdown?
-
The "I knew" at the beginning of this sentence is pluperfect, which is past time, completed aspect, and is literally "I had known," but that doesn't sound right in English.
-
The "I knew" at the beginning of this sentence is pluperfect, which is past time, completed aspect, and is literally "I had known," but that doesn't sound right in English.
-
The "I knew" at the beginning of this sentence is pluperfect, which is past time, completed aspect, and is literally "I had known," but that doesn't sound right in English.
-
The "I knew" at the beginning of this sentence is pluperfect, which is past time, completed aspect, and is literally "I had known," but that doesn't sound right in English.
-
The "I knew" at the beginning of this sentence is pluperfect, which is past time, completed aspect, and is literally "I had known," but that doesn't sound right in English.
-
My cousin, who unfortunately has the curse of a state education to bear, recently asked what the pluperfect tense was.
French is too important to be left to middle-class Francophiles | Andrew Hussey
-
There's no room for self-pity in reality, no pretense in the pluperfect present.
-
“Thriller” was not so much innovation as it was pluperfect power pop.
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.