pluperfect
UK /pluːˈpɜː.fɪkt/ · US /pluˈpɝ.fɪkt/ adjective, noun
Forms pluperfects plpf.
- adjective More than perfect, utterly perfect, ideal.
- adjective (grammar) Pertaining to action completed before another action or event in the past, past perfect.
- adjective (graph theory) Being or relating to a certain type of graph that complies with a theorem ("pluperfect graph theorem") discovered by D. R. Fulkerson in 1970, satisfying even more constraints than a perfect graph.
- adjective (mathematics) Synonym of multiperfect.
- adjective (informal) Used as an intensifier in various interjections. “What in the pluperfect hell is going on here?!”
- noun The pluperfect tense, the past perfect.
- noun A verb in this tense.
Synonyms
multiperfect plusquamperfect preterpluperfect past perfect past perfect tense pluperfect tense
Etymology
Shortening of plusquamperfect, from Latin plusquamperfectum (“more than perfect”), from plus (“more”) + quam (“than”) + perfectum, neuter singular of perfectus (“achieved; finished; perfected”).
Webster’s 1913
- adjective More than perfect; past perfect; --said of the tense which denotes that an action or event was completed at or before the time of another past action or event.
- adjective The pluperfect tense; also, a verb in the pluperfect tense.
Etymology [L. plus more + perfectus perfect; cf. F. plus-que-parfait, L. plusquamperfectum.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “pluperfect”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details