preterite vs tense

preterite

noun
  • A grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past. 

adj
  • Belonging wholly to the past; passed by. 

  • showing an action at a determined moment in the past. 

tense

noun
  • An inflected form of a verb that indicates tense. 

  • 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. 

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 preterite and tense occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )