czasów

Czasów is the genitive plural form of the Polish noun czas, which denotes time, duration, or a historical period, and in linguistics also refers to grammatical tense. In common usage, czasów appears in phrases describing multiple times or periods, or when referring to tense systems in grammar.

Morphology and forms: singular forms are czas (nom.), czasu (gen.), czasowi (dat.), czas (acc.), czasem (instr.), czasie (loc.). Plural forms are czasy (nom./acc.), czasów (gen.), czasom (dat.), czasy (acc.), czasami (instr.), czasach (loc.). Note that czasami is also the common instrumental plural, and it is a homographic adverb meaning “sometimes” in everyday language, though the instrumental plural form here serves a different grammatical role.

Etymology and related terms: czas is a long-standing Polish word derived from the Proto-Slavic root *časь, shared with other Slavic languages (for example, Russian čas, Czech čas). The root underlies many compounds, such as czasopismo (periodical), czasopismowy, and related terms in notions of time and periodization.

Usage: czasów appears in contexts about multiple times or tenses, such as czasów przeszłych (past tenses) or czasów przyszłych (future tenses). It also occurs in phrases referring to historical periods or eras, for example, różnych czasów w historii (various times in history) or bez czasów (without times). The exact meaning depends on surrounding words, but the genitive plural signals plurality of time-related concepts.