historical present

[ hi-stawr-i-kuhl prez-uhnt, -stor- ]

noun

1. the present tense used to narrate a past event as if it were happening at the time of narration, as in Then, in 49 b.c., Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon River and prepares to march on Rome.

adjective

1. designating, in, or relating to the present tense used to narrate a past event as if it were happening at the time of narration.

historical present

noun

1. the present tense used to narrate past events, usually employed in English for special effect or in informal use, as in a week ago I'm walking down the street and I see this accident

Word History and Origins

Origin of historical present¹

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

She offers readers a blessedly brief but often funny overview of the complications of this now dead but still lively language — including declensions, gender, number, case, inalienable possession and the seemingly oxymoronic historical present.

From Washington Post

Under this kind of pressure, blandness emerges as a traumatized truce, a colorless pact that holds the personal and historical present together at the cost of a sinful amnesia.

From The New Yorker

Furthermore, it becomes clear as the book proceeds that each chapter corresponds to a significant span of "your" life, and is set in the historical present.

From The Guardian

Yet there are types of novel where the historical present is true to a pattern.

From The Guardian

A shift to the historical present should not be made abruptly, or frequently, or for any subject except an important crisis.

From Project Gutenberg