Толковый словарь английского языка - past tense

noun Date: 1813 a verb tense expressing action or state in or as if in the past:, a verb tense expressive of elapsed time (as wrote in “on arriving I wrote a letter”), a verb tense expressing action or state in progress or continuance or habitually done or customarily occurring at a past time (as was writing in “I was writing while he dictated” or loved in “their sons loved fishing”)