Preterite vs Imperfect - What's the difference?
preterite | imperfect |
(grammar, of a tense) showing an action at a determined moment in the past.
Belonging wholly to the past; passed by.
* Lowell
(grammar) The preterite tense, simple past tense: the grammatical tense that determines the specific initiation or termination of an action in the past.
Not perfect.
* Shakespeare
* Milton
* Alexander Pope
(botany) unisexual: having either male (with stamens) or female (with pistil) flowers, but not with both.
(taxonomy) Known or expected to be polyphyletic, as of a form taxon.
(obsolete) Lacking some elementary organ that is essential to successful or normal activity.
* Jeremy Taylor
Something having a minor flaw
(grammar) A tense of verbs used in describing a past action that is incomplete or continuous.
In grammar terms the difference between preterite and imperfect
is that preterite is the preterite tense, simple past tense: the grammatical tense that determines the specific initiation or termination of an action in the past while imperfect is a tense of verbs used in describing a past action that is incomplete or continuous.preterite
English
Alternative forms
* preterit (US) * praeterite * (archaic) *Adjective
(-)- Things and persons as thoroughly preterite as Romulus or Numa.
Noun
(en noun)imperfect
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- Why, then, your other senses grow imperfect .
- Nothing imperfect or deficient left / Of all that he created.
- Then say not man's imperfect , Heaven in fault; / Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought.
- He stammered like a child, or an amazed, imperfect person.