1
the tense used to talk about habitual actions, behaviour, or situations that happened or existed before now. The simple past of regular verbs consists of the infinitive with ‘-d’ or ‘-ed’ added, for example ‘arrived’ in the sentence ‘She arrived yesterday’. The auxiliary ‘did’ is used in questions and negatives, for example in the sentences ‘Did you see that?’ and ‘Sometimes his plans did not succeed’.
Synonyms and related words
Verb forms and tenses
aspect
auxiliary verb
conjugation