Noun: preterite
| Singular | preterite |
| Plural | preterites |
Sample Sentences
-
When simple verbs redouble the preterite, the compounds drop the first syllable, as: Pello, pĕpŭli, to drive away, to beat back; Repello, rĕpŭli, and not rĕpĕpŭli, to drive back, to repel. [1772, John Mair, A Radical Vocabulary, Latin and English, Edinburgh: A. Murray, and J. Cochran, for A. Kincaid & W. Creech, and J. Bell, →OCLC, page 101:]
-
Nevertheless, a small amount of variation still exists in one area of standard English verbal morphology: the preterite and past participle forms of certain irregular verbs. [1994, Dieter Stein, Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Towards a Standard English: 1600-1800, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 115:]
Nouns inflected like preterite
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English preterit, from Old French preterit (13th century), from Latin praeteritum (as in tempus praeteritum (“time past”)), the past participle of praetereō (“to go by, go past”), itself from praeter (“beyond, before, above, more than”) (comparative of prae (“before”)) + itum (the past participle of eō (“to go”)). See: Middle English Nouns '
preterit', Latin Nouns '
praeteritum'.
Verbs referencing "preterite"
Finnish Nouns
preteriti.