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Meaning of pluperfect in English:

pluperfect

Pronunciation /pluːˈpəːfɪkt/

Translate pluperfect into Spanish

adjective

Grammar

  • (of a tense) denoting an action completed prior to some past point of time specified or implied, formed in English by had and the past participle, as in he had gone by then.

    ‘This, in effect, is what the pluperfect tense achieves when we say something like ‘John had already eaten when Mary arrived’, meaning that his eating was already past when the past event of Mary's arrival occurred.’
    • ‘You started with the present tense, you then went to the past tense and now you have gone to the pluperfect past tense.’

noun

Grammar

  • The pluperfect tense.

    ‘The pluperfect must be mastered first for the examination.’
    • ‘He also fails to note our point that even without the pluperfect the story is perfectly consistent.’

Origin

Late 15th century from modern Latin plusperfectum, from Latin (tempus praeteritum) plus quam perfectum ‘(past tense) more than perfect’.