Also 4–6 tens, temps, 6 tence. [a. OF. tens, 11–13th c. (also tans, 11–16th c.); mod.F. temps from 13th c. = Pr. temps, Sp. tiempo, Pg., It. tempo:—L. tempus time.]
† 1. Time. Obs. (exc. in allusion to 2).
c. 1315. Shoreham, Poems, i. 1061. And foluelle þat remenaunt Ine purgatoryes tense Eft-sone.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Serm., Sel. Wks. I. 377. Þe Gospel of Maudelen Dai is red on Fridai in Quarter Tense in Septembre among Ferials. [Editor’s note. ‘Quatuor Tempora,’ or, as it is called in Ireland, Quarter Tense; for the gospel read on St. Mary Magdalen’s day (July 22) is the same as that for Ember Friday in September.]
c. 1386. Chaucer, Can. Yeom. Prol. & T., 322. It is to seken … That future temps hath maad men disseuere, In trust ther-of, from al þat euere they hadde.
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., xliv. (Percy Soc.), 214. For onely of hym it is especiall,… in finall, The future tence to knowe directly.
[1843. Carlyle, Past & Pr., II. v. There are three Tenses, Tempora, or Times; and there is one Eternity.)
2. Gram. Any one of the different forms or modifications (or word-groups) in the conjugation of a verb which indicate the different times (past, present, or future) at which the action or state denoted by it is viewed as happening or existing, and also (by extension) the different nature of such action or state, as continuing (imperfect) or completed (perfect); also abstr. that quality of a verb which depends on the expression of such differences.
1388. Wyclif, Prol. xv. 57. A participl of a present tens … may be resoluid into a verbe of the same tens, and a coniunccion copulatif.
1530. Palsgr., Introd. 31. These thre accidentes, mode, tens and declination parsonall.
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps. vii. 2. The tenses or tymes of verbes are oftentymes chaunged among the Hebrewes. Ibid. (1580), in Baret, Alv., To Rdr. viii. The Coniugation, Number, Person, Tence, And Moode of Verbes.
1580. Fulke, Martiall Confut., iv. 169. Findeth fault with him for giving the aoristes the signification of the present temps.
1599. Massinger, etc., Old Law, IV. i. Thou præterpluperfect tense of a woman.
1643. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med., I. § 11. In Eternity there is no distinction of Tenses.
1751. Harris, Hermes, I. vii. Wks. (1841), 152. The tenses are used to mark present, past, and future time.
1871. Roby, Lat. Gram., II. xvi. § 549. [In Latin there are] Six tenses…. Three, denoting incomplete action…. Three, denoting completed action.
1876. Mason, Eng. Gram. (ed. 21), § 212. The tenses of the English verb are made partly by inflection, partly by the use of auxiliary verbs.
Comb. 1871. Roby, Lat. Gram., II. xvi. § 550. All verbs in the passive have in the Indicative only three simple tense-forms.
1875. Whitney, Life Lang., vii. 123. A case or two of verbal tense-making.
1886. Amer. Jrnl. Philos., Dec., 448. That the present subjunctives of posse and videri … can … become tense-expressing.
b. fig. or allusively, in conjunction with mood: see MOOD sb.2 2 b.
