stonden

Stonden is the past tense plural form of the Dutch verb staan, meaning to stand or to be in an upright position. It is used for subjects in the third person plural or for the second-person plural in the simple past tense, for example: Wij stonden in de rij, Jullie stonden naast elkaar.

In contrast, the singular past tense form is stond, used with singular subjects: Ik stond, Jij stond, Hij stond. The past tense of staan thus has two distinct forms depending on number: stond for singular and stonden for plural. The past tense describes a completed or ongoing state in the past, such as a position, location, or posture at a given time.

Stonden also interacts with Dutch perfect tenses. The perfect (present perfect) of staan uses the past participle gestaan with the auxiliary hebben: ik heb gestaan, wij hebben gestaan. This distinguishes the simple past vormstonden from the compound tense used to express experiences or lasting states extending to the present.

Etymology traces staan to Old Dutch and the broader West Germanic verb family connected to the English stand. The forms zijn cognate with the English stand and related Germanic verbs, reflecting a shared root for the concept of vertical position or presence.

See also: staan, staan in dialects, and the related past forms zoals stond and stonden. In usage, stonen commonly appears in narrative descriptions of where people or objects were located, or how they stood at a particular moment in the past.