Present tense

A grammatical tense that locates an event or state in the present, or presents it as current, habitual, or generally true.

Grammatical tense: A grammatical system that locates situations in time relative to a reference point. Present tense is one of the principal ways languages grammatically locate situations in time.
Past tense: A grammatical tense that locates a situation before a reference point, commonly the time of speaking. It contrasts with present tense in locating situations before rather than at or around now.
Verb: A part of speech that typically expresses actions, events, processes, or states. Present tense is most commonly expressed through the forms of verbs.
Historical present: The use of present-tense forms to narrate past events vividly. It shifts past events into a present-tense frame for immediacy or dramatic effect.
Grammatical aspect: A grammatical category describing how an event unfolds or is viewed over time. Aspect combines with present tense to distinguish ongoing situations from habits and completed events.
Future tense: A grammatical tense or construction that presents a situation as later than a reference point. It supplies the temporal contrast for situations projected beyond the present.
Inflection: A change in a word's form that expresses grammatical information without creating a new lexeme. Many languages mark present tense by changing the verb's inflected form.
Narrative present: Present-tense narration that depicts fictional or reported events as unfolding now. It uses present forms to establish the ongoing viewpoint of a narrative.
Simple present: A present-tense construction commonly used for habits, general truths, and scheduled events. It shows why present-tense forms need not describe an event happening at this moment.
Present perfect: A construction combining present tense with perfect aspect to relate an earlier event to the present. Its form is present, but its event typically precedes the moment of speaking.

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Ethnographic presentRelated: Present-tense descriptions can make a practice sound continuously current and unchanged.