Equipaban

Equipaban is the imperfect indicative form of the Spanish verb equipar, meaning they equipped or they used to equip. It is used to describe past actions that were ongoing or habitual, or to set the scene in narrative past.

The full imperfect conjugation of equipar for the third-person plural is equipaban, corresponding to los/las equipos or ellos/ellas/ustedes depending on subject. The other forms in the same tense are yo equipaba, tú equipabas, él/ella/usted equipaba, nosotros equipábamos, vosotros equipabais.

Usage of equipaban commonly appears in contexts involving provisioning or outfitting: for example, Los marineros equipaban sus barcos con velas nuevas cada temporada. The form can describe repeated past actions, such as una empresa que equipaba sus laboratorios con tecnología avanzada, or ongoing past activities like los técnicos que equipaban las instalaciones antes de la inspección.

Etymology: equipar derives from root forms in Romance languages and is generally traced to French or other continental sources that contributed to the Spanish verb system. Equipaban, as a verb form, is simply the third-person plural imperfect ending applied to equipar, and does not represent a separate lexical item beyond the conjugated form.

See also: equipar, conjugation of equipar, Spanish past tenses, imperfect tense.