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# past

«past» in Mova's school dictionary: **time that has gone, before now** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (the past); adjective (past); preposition (past); adverb (past)

### meaning for a pupil

1) The past is time that has gone, before now. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/past/#m1)

2) Past (preposition) means going by something: he walked past the shop. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/past/#m2)

3) In telling time, past means after the hour: «Half past three» is 3:30. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/past/#m3)

4) Past (adjective) means just gone: the past week. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/past/#m4)

5) Past also means beyond: past midnight, past the bridge. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/past/#m5)

### sense in the lessons

In maths: telling time: «half past», «10 past 4»; time before now; going by a place; «the past 3 days» is a number of days. In grammar: the past tense (walked, ran). In history: learning about the past. In stories: «long in the past», «she ran past the gate».

### examples

- It is half past 2. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/past/#x1)
- The bus came 20 minutes past 8. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/past/#x2)
- In the past 3 days she read 60 pages. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/past/#x3)
- He walked past 5 houses. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/past/#x4)
- In the past, people wrote with feather pens. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/past/#x5)
- It's past your bedtime! [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/past/#x6)
- «Ran» is the past tense of «run». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/past/#x7)
- Quarter past ten is 10:15. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/past/#x8)
- Go past the church and turn left. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/past/#x9)
- Suddenly there rode past another horseman. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/past/#x10)

### note

«Minutes past» an hour: add to the hour. «Half past» = 30 minutes, «quarter past» = 15. Trap: «the past 3 days» gives a number of days. Trap: past and passed sound the same: «passed» is the verb («she passed the ball»), «past» is the place or time word. Opposite: future; with time, «to» (quarter to 4 = 3:45).

### In the corpora

- [It was reported that lawyers in America handed a court past cases that a chatbot had invented, and that the judge fined them.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/20-news-court-cases-airline/5/)
- [A giraffe's dark tongue is about 45 to 50 centimetres long and pulls leaves past the thorns of acacia trees.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/128-madagascar-real-zebras-hippos-and-giraffes/15/)
- [Picture a city garden at midnight: a fox trots past the bins and somewhere a rabbit freezes, then zigzags away.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/141-zootopia-real-foxes-and-rabbits/3/)
- [In tests honeybees learned to fly past a certain number of landmarks, up to about four, to find sugar water.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/388-surprising-brains-tool-using-fish-counting-bees-laughing-rats-and-clever-pigs/10/)
- [They watch him splash past, rolling badly but rowing his hardest.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/27-willows-ch1-part3-otter-badger-and-toad/8/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «past» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/past/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.