Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

continuous tense

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.76 in modern English

Syllables: con-tin-u-ous tense
IPA

17

Scrabble Score

15

Letters

4

Syllables

8

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

A verb tense expressing ongoing action; in English, any of the tenses formed with the present participle, namely present continuous ("I am dreaming"), past continuous ("I was dreaming"), present perfect continuous ("I have been dreaming"), past perfect continuous ("I had been dreaming"), future continuous ("I will be dreaming") or future perfect continuous ("I will have been dreaming").

Example Sentences

"Traditional grammar places great stress on [...] tenses of verbs and tense-equivalents, including the complications of the continuous tenses (he is writing the book all over again)[.]"

Inflected Forms

continuous tenses (plural)

Synonyms

progressive tense progressive imperfect imperfect tense

Questions

What does continuous tense mean?: A verb tense expressing ongoing action; in English, any of the tenses formed with the present participle, namely present continuous ("I am dreaming"), past continuous ("I was dreaming"), present perfect continuous ("I have been dreaming"), past perfect continuous ("I had been dreaming"), future continuous ("I will be dreaming") or future perfect continuous ("I will have been dreaming").

How to pronounce continuous tense

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “continuous tense”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling () so you know which sounds to aim for.
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