Imperfect
The imperfect, often inaccurately called the imperfect tense in the classical grammars of several Indo-European languages, denotes a grammatical combination of past tense and imperfective aspect, and so may be more precisely called past imperfective. In English, the term refers to a form of the verb that combines past tense with similar aspects, such as incomplete, continuous, habitual, or coincident with another action.
Read more about Imperfect.
Famous quotes containing the word imperfect:
“The mere existence of conscience, that faculty of which people prate so much nowadays, and are so ignorantly proud, is a sign of our imperfect development. It must be merged in instinct before we become fine.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Behind every individual closes organization; before him opens liberty,—the Better, the Best. The first and worse races are dead. The second and imperfect races are dying out, or remain for the maturing of the higher. In the latest race, in man, every generosity, every new perception, the love and praise he extorts from his fellows, are certificates of advance out of fate into freedom.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Art is a reality, not a definition; inasmuch as it approaches a reality, it approaches perfection, and inasmuch as it approaches a mere definition, it is imperfect and untrue.”
—Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846)