resistíais

Resistíais is a verb form in Spanish, specifically the imperfect indicative for the second-person plural subject vosotr os. It corresponds to the English “you all were resisting” or “you all used to resist.” This form is used when describing past actions or states that were ongoing or habitual in the past, and it is most common in Spain where the pronoun vosotros is standard.

Formation and usage: The imperfect endings for -ir verbs in Spanish are -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -íais, -ían. The vosotros form attaches the ending -íais to the stem resist- (from resistir), yielding resístíais in standard practice. The form signals a past, non-punctual action or description rather than a completed past event. In regions or registers that do not use vosotros, the corresponding form with ustedes is resistían, sharing the same imperfect meaning but using a different subject pronoun.

Etymology and related forms: Resistir comes from Latin resistere, meaning to stand back or oppose. Related nouns include resistencia (resistance) and resistencias, while other languages have cognate forms (e.g., resistir in Spanish, resistir in Portuguese, resistere in Italian).

Notes: Although still taught and used in many Spanish-speaking communities, the vosotros forms are less common in Latin America, where ustedes governs both present and past tenses and uses resistían as the imperfect with ustedes.

Example: Antes, resistíais la presión de las autoridades sin ceder. This sentence illustrates a habitual past action directed at a plural you all, using the imperfect vosotros form to describe ongoing resistance in the past.