pastness

[ past-nis ]

noun

1. the state or fact of being past.

Word History and Origins

Origin of pastness¹

First recorded in 1820–30; past + -ness

Example Sentences

This Is the process whereby pain of the past in its pastness May be converted into the future tense.

From Salon

Eliot put it nearly a century ago, the historical sense “involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence.”

From Los Angeles Times

Eliot called a sense “not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence.”

From Washington Post

Last June, when its fourth season concluded, “The Americans” was a series about the pastness of the past.

From The New Yorker

Your discussion of that passage is brilliant, you extrapolate much from it about “the culmination of a theory of pastness” and also how it describes succinctly Bellow’s “lastingness.”

From Los Angeles Times