present tensen.adj.

a1450 (a1397) Prol. Old Test. in Bible (Wycliffite, L.V.) (Cambr. Mm.2.15) (1850) xv. 57 A participle of a present tens, either preterit..mai be resoluid into a verbe of the same tens.

c1450 in D. Thomson Middle Eng. Grammatical Texts (1984) 28 How many tens be þer of participyl..Þe present tens, þe pretertens and þe futur tens. Qwerby knowyst þe participyl of present tens? For he endyth in Englysch in ‘-yng’ or in ‘-and’.

1585 T. Bilson True Difference Christian Subiection iv. 676 His speech in the present tense noteth nothing but that hee had euen then giuen him-selfe ouer to death for our sakes, which immediatly they should beheld.

1641 ‘Smectymnuus’ Vindic. Answer Hvmble Remonstr. vi. 78 That which Hierome speakes in the present tense..he would remit to the time past.

1656 J. Smith Myst. Rhetorique Unvail'd 185 The Present Tense being put for the Preterperfect.

1706 J. Stevens New Spanish Gram. sig. Bbbbb4, in New Spanish Dict. Participle of the Present Tense and Active Voice.

1783 H. Blair Lect. Rhetoric I. xvii. 359 In place of relating something that is past, we use the present tense, and describe it as actually passing before our eyes.

1845 Encycl. Metrop. (1847) I. 56/1 As absolute existence is naturally contemplated under the form of a time perpetually present, it is sufficient for us to consider this as one of the uses of the present tense.

1897 S. W. Baker Eng. & Tongan Vocab. ii. iii. 35 The present tense in the Tongan language..for which we have two forms in English.

1949 Language 25 403 There is only one present tense, namely an imperfective.

1967 T. Wilder Eighth Day ii. 167 If any member uses the verb in the first or second person of the present tense, he has to pay a fine.

2001 S. Brett Death on Downs (2002) vii. 49 Deliberately using the present tense, Jude said, ‘Tamsin is suffering from ME’.

1630 J. Taylor Wks. 188 In the preter tense a foole he was, And in the present tense he is an Asse.

1638 C. Aleyn Hist. Henrie 7th 124 She's nothing now, that was even now a Queene: There is no Present tense in this worlds Glory.

1685 W. Clark Grand Tryal iii. xxxi. 273 Pleasing themselves with things o'th' present tense, And lay up nothing for convenience, In their old age.

1748 S. Richardson Clarissa VII. xliv. 176 All pains, which press heavy upon both parts of that unequal union by which frail mortality holds its precarious tenure, generally are most acute in the present tense.

1783 H. Cowley Which is the Man? iii. i. 25 I love beauty as well as any man; but it must be all in the present tense.

1822 S. Woodworth Deed of Gift iii. ii. 58 I am your rival, in the present tense, in the affections of Mary Moreland.

1869 A. Trollope Phineas Finn I. x. 86 To be Lady Chiltern in the present tense, and Lady Brentford in the future, would be promotion for Violet Effingham in the past.

1916 T. Kettle Poems & Parodies 63 Go knock your head on Dublin castle walls: Are they irrelevant, historic dust, Or a hard present-tense?

1991 New Art Examiner Apr. 36/1 These eight painters have shown that we can be rooted in the present tense and not fear the onslaught of contemporaneity.

1748 S. Richardson Clarissa V. xxv. 221 I know thou likest this lively present-tense manner.

1866 Jrnl. Amer. Oriental Soc. 8 xxiii From which all other forms of the present tense-ending..are formed by abrasion.

1906 Jrnl. Philos., Psychol. & Sci. Methods 3 67 His ‘sleep’ is utterly irreconcilable with his present-tense ‘transitions’.

1965 Amer. Speech 40 116 In combining Zoque -hay-, a benefactive morpheme, with -pa, a present-tense morpheme, one should get only -hapya.

1982 I. Hamilton Robert Lowell xiv. 226 Every so often he would..stray off into agonized, present-tense unburdening.

1999 Food & Wine Apr. 66/2 They'll find that although buying from farmers is a present-tense proposition, composting is still mostly in the someday stage.