Etymologically
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past

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /pɑːst/, US /pæst/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English past, a variant of passed, the past participle of passen (“to go by”),[2][3][4] the source of pass.[2][5] Hoad explains that it grew out of perfect forms made with “to be”, as in “the daies ben passed”.[6] French passé and Italian passato were formed in the same way.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Gone by, ended, over: before 1325, in the Cursor Mundi.[3] The form passed is used about 1380 in Chaucer's Boece.[3]

Semantic evolution

The preposition, “beyond in time or place”, dates from about 1300,[2] from constructions such as “the day is passed prime”,[6] and the adverb, as in go past, from 1546[7] or, according to Hoad, the 19th century.[6] “Gone by, belonging to an earlier time” is from the mid-14th century.[2] The grammatical sense appears in Palsgrave in 1530;[3] past tense is from the 1650s and past participle by 1775.[2] The noun, “the time gone by”, is recorded before 1500[3] or about 1500,[2] and “a person's earlier life”, often a shameful one, by 1836.[2][6]

Timeline

  • c. 1300 – preposition.[2]
  • before 1325 – gone by (Cursor Mundi).[3]
  • before 1500 – noun, the time gone by.[3]
  • 1530 – grammatical sense (Palsgrave).[3]
  • 1546 – adverb.[7]
  • 1650s – past tense.[2]
  • 1775 – past participle.[2]
  • 1836 – a person's past.[2]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. Gone by; over; no longer current.
  2. Belonging to an earlier time; bygone.
  3. Just gone by: the past week.
  4. Having formerly held an office: a past president.
  5. (grammar) Of a tense expressing an earlier action or state.

Noun

  1. The time before the present.
  2. A person's earlier life, especially one kept secret.
  3. (grammar) The past tense, or a verb in it.

Preposition

  1. Beyond in time; after: half past six.
  2. Beyond in position or reach: past hope.

Adverb

  1. So as to go by: walk past.

Word family

  • pastless
  • pastness
  • past participle
  • past perfect
  • past progressive
  • past tense
  • flypast
  • past master
  • past mistress
  • fly-past
  • march-past
  • pass
  • passé
  • passage
  • bygone

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  6. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster