present tense

English

Noun
Examples
  • "Has the #5 bus arrived yet?" "Yeah, you didn't make it." (past tense)
  • "The bus is too far away. I can't make it." (present tense)
  • "I see the #5 bus across the street. I won’t make it." (future tense)

present tense (plural present tenses)

  1. (grammar) A grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time.
    • 1998 March 30, Lance Morrow, “The Trouble With The Present Tense”, in Time‎:
      Animals—lions and zebras and beautiful snakes—live vividly in the present tense, in a bright unconsciousness of time. That is their innocence and their limitation. Humans carry with them their experiences, their pasts; men and women work with a knowledge of consequences and, doing so, impose order on the chaotic present and project consequences into the future.

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