past
noun · adjective · adverb
Showing past , the base form of “pasted”.
Simple meaning
The period of time that has already happened, in contrast to the present and the future.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pastIPA pronunciation (US)
pæst
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The period of time that has already happened, in contrast to the present and the future.
The time that has elapsed
adjective
Earlier than the present time; no longer current
Of a period of time: having just gone by; previous.
Having already happened; in the past; finished.
adverb
In a direction that passes.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The period of time that has already happened, in contrast to the present and the future.
Used this way, past is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- past tense , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use past
- “Every hour a train goes past.”adverb
- “Reporters dug into the candidate's past.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A person authorized to conduct religious worship.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The time that has elapsed.
A verb tense that expresses actions or states in the past.
A progressive tense used to describe on-going action in the past.
A progressive tense used to describe on-going action in the past.
A perfective tense used to express action completed in the past.
A perfective tense used to express action completed in the past.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A composition of flat objects pasted on a board or other backing.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.