past tense vs tense

past tense

noun
  • A grammatical form (often a verb form) that refers to an event, transaction, occurrence, or object that happened (or had happened), or existed, at some time before now (the applicable reference time). 

  • A grammatical form (often a verb form) that is used in a conditional expression to refer to an event, transaction, occurrence, or object that is hypothetical and often counterfactual. 

tense

noun
  • Any of the forms of a verb which distinguish when an action or state of being occurs or exists. 

  • The property of indicating the point in time at which an action or state of being occurs or exists. 

  • An inflected form of a verb that indicates tense. 

verb
  • To apply a tense to. 

  • To make tense. 

  • To become tense. 

adj
  • Pulled taut, without any slack. 

  • Showing signs of stress or strain; not relaxed. 

How often have the words past tense and tense occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )