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past meaning

EN[pɑːst]
US
WPast
  • The past is a term used to indicate the totality of events which occurred before a given point in time. The past is the object of such fields as history, archaeology, archaeoastronomy, chronology, geology, historical geology,
past
past
  • NounPLpasts
    1. The period of time that has already happened, in contrast to the present and the future.
      1. a book about a time machine that can transport people back into the past
    2. (grammar) The past tense.
    3. AdjectiveCOMmore pastSUPmost past
      1. Having already happened; in the past; finished.
        1. 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.
      2. (postmodifier) Following expressions of time to indicate how long ago something happened; ago.
        1. Of a period of time: having just gone by; previous.
          1. Sarkozy's total will be seen as a personal failure. It is the first time an outgoing president has failed to win a first-round vote in the past 50 years and makes it harder for Sarkozy to regain momentum.
        2. (grammar) Of a tense, expressing action that has already happened or a previously-existing state.
          1. past tense ‎
      3. AdverbCOMmore pastSUPmost past
        1. in a direction that passes.
          1. I watched him walk past
        2. Passing by, especially without stopping or being delayed.
          1. Ignore them, we'll play past them.
          2. Please don't drive past the fruit stand, I want to stop there.
      4. Preposition
        1. beyond in place, quantity or time.
          1. the room past mine
          2. count past twenty
          3. past midnight
      5. More Examples
        1. Used in the Middle of Sentence
          • He tried sneaking it past them, but they didn't cotton to his attempts.
          • Teaching has seen continual changes over the past decades.
          • Scarlet red is an aniline dye which has been used in the treatment of wounds and ulcers since the beginning of the past century.
        2. Used in the Ending of Sentence
          • But McCartney, 50, is hardly ready to give up the ghost of his creative past.
          • [A]nyone saying now that humans are a towering inferno of irrationality ought to be challenged, and aggressively so. — Michael S. Gazzaniga, The Mind's Past.
          • The shop window reflected his image as he walked past.

      Meaning of past for the defined word.

      Grammatically, this word "past" is an adjective. It's also an adverb. It's also a noun, more specifically, a countable noun. It's also a preposition.
      • Part-of-Speech Hierarchy
        1. Adjectives
          • Adverbs
            • Nouns
              • Countable nouns
              • Prepositions
              Difficultness: Level 1
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              Easy     ➨     Difficult
              Definiteness: Level 9
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              Definite    ➨     Versatile
              Related Links:
              1. en pasture
              2. en pastoral
              3. fr pastoral
              4. en pastor
              5. en paste
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