| imperfect tense |
| Definition: A tense that denotes a past action that is still in progress. |
| Example:
(1) When I walked to the store, I was thinking of you. (2) Every Tuesday I used to eat hot dogs. |
| Oxford English Dictionary: Its first citation is from 1530: "The preter imperfit tens, as je parloye." (Jehan Palsgrave, Lesclarcissement de la langue françoyse, 84) |