Postrádali

Postrádali is a Czech verb form that functions as the past tense for the verb postrádat, meaning to lack, to be missing, or to miss. It describes a completed action in which a group of people or agents experienced an absence of something or someone in the past.

As an imperfective transitive verb, postrádat generally indicates that something was lacking or missed over a period of time, rather than a single completed event. The form postrádali is used with masculine or mixed-gender plural subjects; feminine plural would normally be postrádaly, while singular forms are postrádal (masculine), postrádala (feminine), or postrádalo (neuter).

Common uses include missing people (postrádali někoho), objects (postrádali klíče), or abstract things such as time or opportunities (postrádali čas, postrádali příležitost).

Examples:

- Včera postrádali klíče. They missed the keys yesterday.

- Lidé postrádali čas na jednání. People lacked time for the meeting.

In meaning, postrádat is close to chybět, though postrádáti emphasizes the absence of something that was expected or needed. The word is inflected for tense, mood, number, and gender as typical for Czech verbs, and its precise form changes with the subject.