Past crossword clue

The most likely answers for the crossword clue “Past” are THEN, LAST or LATE, with 4 letters. Below are 65 answers from 3 to 15 letters, best match first in each length, then what each top answer means and how to tell them apart.

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The best answers, explained

OLD 3 letters · noun

past times

THEN 4 letters · adverb

subsequently or soon afterward (often used as sentence connectors) “then he left”

OTHER 5 letters · adjective

recently past “the other evening”

FORMER 6 letters · adjective

(used especially of persons) of the immediate past “the former president”

ANCIENT 7 letters · adjective

belonging to times long past especially of the historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire “ancient history”

PREVIOUS 8 letters · adjective

(used especially of persons) of the immediate past “the previous occupant of the White House”

PRECEDING 9 letters · adjective

of a person who has held and relinquished a position or office

HISTORICAL 10 letters · adjective

belonging to the past; of what is important or famous in the past “historical (or historic) times”

PREHISTORIC 11 letters · adjective

belonging to or existing in times before recorded history “prehistoric settlements”

RECOLLECTION 12 letters · noun

the ability to recall past occurrences

RETROSPECTIVE 13 letters · adjective

concerned with or related to the past “retrospective self-justification”

RETROSPECTIVELY 15 letters · adverb

in a manner contemplative of past events “retrospectively, he seems like a great artist”

Telling them apart

With 4 squares, THEN, LAST, LATE, GONE, BACK and YORE all fit. The third letter tells them all apart: E → THEN · S → LAST · T → LATE · N → GONE · C → BACK · R → YORE. Fill in that crossing answer first.

With 5 squares, OTHER, EARLY, OLDEN, STORY, TRUST and RETRO all fit. The third letter tells them all apart: H → OTHER · R → EARLY · D → OLDEN · O → STORY · U → TRUST · T → RETRO. Fill in that crossing answer first.

With 3 squares, OLD, AGO and NOW all fit. The first letter tells them all apart: O → OLD · A → AGO · N → NOW. Fill in that crossing answer first.

Other forms of this clue

Clues often use another form of the word, and the answer then takes the same form: “pasted” wants an answer that ends the same way.

What “past” means

• adjective: earlier than the present time; no longer current (“time past”)
• adjective: of a person who has held and relinquished a position or office
• noun: the time that has elapsed (“forget the past”)
• noun: a earlier period in someone's life (especially one that they have reason to keep secret) (“reporters dug into the candidate's past”)

A clue usually points at one of these senses, so the right answer is the one that matches the sense the puzzle means: check it against the crossing words.

About these answers

We match the clue against our own thesaurus and dictionary (Open English WordNet): words that mean the same as PAST, and words whose definition is PAST. We don't copy answers from newspaper puzzles, so a clue that leans on trivia or wordplay may need the crossing letters instead.