The past tense is a verb tense used to talk about past actions, states of being, or events. There are four past tense forms: the past simple (e.g., “you PAST definition: 1. in or to a position that is further than a particular point: 2. used to say what the time is…. Learn more. Learn the meaning, grammar, and usage of the word past as an adjective, noun, adverb, preposition, and verb form. Compare past with related terms such as passed, past perfect, and past life. Past is free software for scientific data analysis, with functions for data manipulation, plotting, univariate and multivariate statistics, ecological analysis, time series and spatial analysis, morphometrics and stratigraphy.