Pluperfect Tense
The pluperfect is a type of verb form, traditionally treated as one of the tenses of certain languages, used in referring to something that occurred earlier than the time being considered, when the time being considered is already in the past. The meaning of the pluperfect is equivalent to that of English verb forms such as "(we) had arrived" or "(they) had written".
The word derives from the Latin plus quam perfectum, "more than perfect" – the Latin perfect refers to something that occurred in the past, while the pluperfect refers to something that occurred "more" (further) in the past than the perfect.
In English grammar, the equivalent of the pluperfect (a form such as "had written") is now often called the past perfect, since it combines past tense with perfect aspect. (The same term is sometimes used in relation to the grammar of other languages.) English also has a past perfect progressive (or past perfect continuous) form: "had been writing".
Read more about Pluperfect Tense: Meaning of The Pluperfect, Examples From Various Languages, Table of Forms, See Also
Famous quotes containing the word tense:
“A pathological business, writing, don’t you think? Just look what a writer actually does: all that unnatural tense squatting and hunching, all those rituals: pathological!”
—Hans Magnus Enzensberger (b. 1929)