blickte

Blickte is the simple past tense form of the German verb blicken, meaning to look or glance. In this tense, the form can function as both the first-person singular (ich blickte) and the third-person singular (er/sie blickte) depending on the subject, since the spelling is identical in these cases.

Conjugation and form: The full Präteritum paradigm for blicken is ich blickte, du blicktest, er/sie/es blickte; wir blickten, ihr blicktet, sie blickten. Blicken is a regular weak verb, so its past tense endings follow the standard -te/-ten pattern without stem changes. The form blickte is most commonly encountered in written German, especially in narrative prose, historical writing, and formal reporting.

Usage and nuance: Blickte is typically used to describe a completed act of looking in the past. It often appears in literature and news reporting to convey a straightforward sequence of events. In everyday spoken German, past actions are frequently expressed with the Perfekt (haben/sein + Partizip II) rather than Präteritum, but blickte remains correct and recognizable in spoken language when used in appropriate contexts, such as retellings or stylized narration.

Etymology and related forms: Blicken is derived from Germanic roots related to sight. The word is closely related to other German verbs describing visual action, and blickte shares common inflection patterns with these verbs in the Präteritum.

See also: blicken, Präteritum, Perfekt, German verbs.