past perfect

1. 1.

   a perfective tense used to express action completed in the past

   “`I had finished' is an example of the past perfect”

   Synonymspast perfect tensepluperfectpluperfect tense

   Broaderperfective

Questions about past perfect

What does past perfect mean?

past perfect means "a perfective tense used to express action completed in the past".

What is another word for past perfect?

Close synonyms include past perfect tense, pluperfect, pluperfect tense. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.