pagātne

See also: pagātnē

Latvian

A neologism coined from pagā(jis) (“gone, passed”) +‎ -tne by Atis Kronvalds in 1873, as a calque of German Vergangenheit (“past”), from past participle vergangen (“gone, passed”)). As a grammatical term, it was first used by A. Stērste in 1879.^[1]

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pagātne f (5th declension)

past (time period anterior to the present; circumstances previous to the present, current ones)
tāla pagātne ― distant past

atcerēties savu pagātni ― to remember one's past

vēsturiskā, ģeoloģiskā pagātne ― historical, geological past

tautas pagātne ― the past of a people, ethnic past

par pagātni vēsta seni raksti, tagadni savām acīm var redzēt ikviens, un nākotne ir noslēpums visiem ― old writings tell about the past, everybody can see the present with their own eyes, and the future is a mystery to all

cik vien tālu Kaspars spēja atskatīties pagātnē, ziemas vienmēr bija atnākušas pa nakti ― as far as Kaspars could look into the past, winters always came during the night
(linguistics, grammar) past (verb form describing an action that happens before the current time, before the time of speech)
vienkāršā, saliktā pagātne ― simple, compound past

Declension of pagātne (5th declension)

	singular (vienskaitlis)	plural (daudzskaitlis)
nominative (nominatīvs)	pagātne	—
accusative (akuzatīvs)	pagātni	—
genitive (ģenitīvs)	pagātnes	—
dative (datīvs)	pagātnei	—
instrumental (instrumentālis)	pagātni	—
locative (lokatīvs)	pagātnē	—
vocative (vokatīvs)	pagātne	—

^ Karulis, Konstantīns (1992) “pagātne”, in Latviešu Etimoloģijas Vārdnīca‎^[1] (in Latvian), Rīga: AVOTS, →ISBN