PAST TENSE

[past tense] n (1813): a verb tense expressing action or state in or as if in the past: a: a verb tense expressive of elapsed time (as wrote in "on arriving I wrote a letter") b: a verb tense expressing action or state in progress or continuance or habitually done or customarily occurring at a past time (as was writing in "I was writing while he dictated" or loved in "their sons loved fishing")