uvimos

Uvimos is the first-person plural form of the preterite tense in the Spanish verb tener, though it is more accurately part of the tuvimos form. It belongs to a group of irregular preterite stems in which several verbs take an -uv- stem (for example, estar becomes estuve, anduv-; tener becomes tuv-, yielding tuvimos for we had). The complete conjugation of tener in the preterite is tuve, tuviste, tuvo, tuvimos, tuvisteis, tuvieron. The element uv- is the distinctive stem that characterizes this class of verbs.

In standard usage, tuvimos expresses a completed past action or state, most commonly translated as “we had” or “we possessed.” It can denote possession in the past, as in “Tuvimos un perro” (We had a dog), or describe past events, as in “Ayer tuvimos una reunión” (Yesterday we had a meeting). The preterite is often used in narrative to sequence actions that occurred and were finished at a specific time.

A common construction with tener in the past is haber + participle in the perfect tenses, but in the simple preterite the form is tuvimos. For obligation in the past, the phrase tener que + infinitive is used: “tuvimos que ir” means “we had to go.” It is worth noting that the verb haber has a different preterite appearance; the common past form is hubo (and hubimos is rare and mostly archaic).

See also: tener, estarse, estar, andar, preterite tense, irregular verbs in Spanish.