Perfect tense - Definition and Overview

The perfect tenses are verb tenses showing actions completed at or before a specific time.

In English, there are three simple perfect tenses, formed with conjugations of the auxiliary verb have and a verb:

• Present perfect: I have eaten, passive I have been eaten.
• Past perfect (pluperfect): I had eaten, passive I had been eaten.
• Future perfect: I will (or shall) have eaten, passive I will have been eaten.

In addition to these, we can distinguish the three perfect progressive tenses:

• Present perfect progressive: I have been eating, passive I have been being eaten.
• Past perfect progressive: I had been eating, passive I had been being eaten.
• Future perfect progressive: I will (or shall) have been eating, passive I will have been being eaten.

Obviously, the convoluted passives of these tenses are rarely used.

See also: past tense, future tense, grammatical aspect.