Pluperfect

//pluˈpɝ.fɪkt// adj, noun, slang

adj, noun, slang ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The pluperfect tense, the past perfect.
  2. 2
    a perfective tense used to express action completed in the past wordnet
  3. 3
    A verb in this tense.
Adjective
  1. 1
    More than perfect, utterly perfect, ideal.
  2. 2
    Pertaining to action completed before another action or event in the past, past perfect.
  3. 3
    Relating to a certain type of graph, complying with the theorem (pluperfect graph theorem) discovered by D. R. Fulkerson in 1970.
  4. 4
    Synonym of multiperfect.
  5. 5
    Used as an intensifier in various interjections. informal

    "What in the pluperfect hell is going on here?!"

Adjective
  1. 1
    more than perfect wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
futureimperfectmultiperfectpastpast perfectpast perfect

Example

More examples

"I had not remembered what the pluperfect tense was until I looked it up to write this sentence."

Etymology

Shortening of plusquamperfect, from Latin plusquamperfectum (“more than perfect”), from plus (“more”) + quam (“than”) + perfectum, neuter singular of perfectus (“achieved; finished; perfected”).

Related phrases

pluperfect graph theorempluperfect tense

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