past tense
From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpast tenseˌpast ˈtense noun [countable] a form of a verb that shows that something happened or existed before the present time, typically a form such as ‘walked’, as in ‘I walked away’Examples from the Corpuspast tense• The former wrote of the apostles in the past tense.• This is written in paragraphs explaining in the past tense what has been seen.• For the next three weeks my career was in the past tense.• For instance, the past tense of regular verbs is expressed by adding -d or -ed to the infinitive.• Humans have no problem in determining that this is the past tense of the verb preach.