past participle

[ past pahr-tuh-sip-uhl ]

noun

, Grammar.

1. a participle with past or passive meaning, such as fallen, worked, caught, or defeated: used in English and some other languages as an adjective, as in a broken record, or along with an auxiliary to form perfect and passive verb constructions, as in We have eaten and He was wounded.

past participle

noun

1. a participial form of verbs used to modify a noun that is logically the object of a verb, also used in certain compound tenses and passive forms of the verb in English and other languages

Word History and Origins

Origin of past participle¹

First recorded in 1790–1800

Example Sentences

When the case was argued, a government lawyer told the justices that the term was “the equivalent of the past participle form of the paradigmatic profane word in our culture.”

From New York Times

Correct French would not have used the infinitive “tuer,” but rather the past participle, ending with an “e” to agree with the female writer, Ms. Marchal.

From New York Times

Aside from being the past participle of wake, for decades, it meant conscious and aware – but the slang word has come to represent an embrace of progressive activism, as well.

From Fox News

Factum, the neuter past participle, means ‘that which has been done’.

From Literature

The word “confit” is the French past participle of the verb “to preserve.”

From Washington Post