pretérita

Pretérita is the feminine form of the Spanish adjective pretérito, used to describe something related to the pretérito or past tense in grammar. The term appears mainly in linguistic descriptions or dictionaries, and is less common in everyday speech, where pretérito or the specific named tense (such as pretérito perfecto simple or pretérito imperfecto) is preferred. Pretérita can be used when the noun it modifies is feminine, for example la forma pretérita or las formas pretéritas.

In Spanish grammar, pretérito refers to a past tense used to express actions completed in the past. It covers several forms, including pretérito perfecto simple and pretérito imperfecto. The feminine form pretérita is simply the agreeing variant used with feminine nouns: una conjugación pretérita, la forma pretérita, las formas pretéritas. Since Spanish verbs themselves do not inflect for gender, gender agreement occurs in the accompanying nouns and adjectives, not in the verb forms.

Pretérita functions as an adjective rather than a distinct tense. Because Spanish verbs do not change for gender, the verb forms of the pretérito do not differ by the subject’s gender. The feminine form pretérita is therefore used mainly to describe or refer to past-tense categories when the head noun is feminine. In practice, the use of pretérita is uncommon outside formal grammatical discussions, and most speakers will simply refer to pretérito or the specific tense name. See also pretérito, pretérito perfecto simple, pretérito imperfecto.