Past Meaning
/pɑːst/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounThe period of time that has already happened, in contrast to the present and the future.
nounThe past tense.
Sentence Examples
Air quality has deteriorated these past few years.
Danger past, God forgotten.
She smiled at me as she walked past.
CEFR Practice Quiz
Historians study events from the ____ to understand today.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
In the ____, people relied on handwritten letters to communicate across long distances.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English passed, past participle of passen (“to pass, to go by”), whence Modern English pass.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The present is only intelligible in the light of the past, often a very remote past indeed."
— 1860, Richard Chenevix Trench, On the English Language, Past and Present:
"Every time the little gate creaks--I'm in the shed with the tanks at the end of the garden--I wonder from which of my pasts the person is arriving, seeking me out even here: maybe it is only the past of yesterday and of this same suburb, the squat Arab garbage collector who in October begins his rounds for tips, house by house, with a Happy New Year card, because he says that his colleagues keep all the December tips for themselves and he never gets a penny; but it could also be the more distant pasts pursuing old Ruedi, finding the little gate in the Impasse: smugglers from Valais, mercenaries from Katanga, croupiers from the Veradero casino and the days of Fulgencio Batista."
— 1979, Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler:
"The Mesozoic landscape of southeastern Utah can tell us much about the past, and it's one of the most intriguing and beautiful landscapes on Earth."
— 2012, Chinle Miller, In Mesozoic Lands: The Mesozoic Geology of Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Kindle edition:
"The highway to the East Coast which ran through the borough of Ebbfield had always been a main road and even now, despite the vast garages, the pylons and the gaily painted factory glasshouses which had sprung up beside it, there still remained an occasional trace of past cultures."
— 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
"That had been, what, three years past?"
— 1999, George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings, Bantam, published 2011, page 538:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
Historians study events from the ____ to understand today.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
In the ____, people relied on handwritten letters to communicate across long distances.