Non-past

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of a tense, not pertaining to the past; in particular, applicable to both the present and the future. not-comparable

    "In the phrases ‘I am running tomorrow’ and ‘I am running now,’ the main verb is in the non-past tense."

Example

More examples

"Many textbooks on Japanese claim that the language has verbal tenses, namely, the past and the non-past, but many academics proclaim that Japanese has really verbal aspects, not tenses, namely the perfective and imperfective aspects. In this way, Tagalog is more like Japanese, with its complete, progressive, and contemplative as main aspects."

Etymology

From non- + past.

More for "non-past"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.