Aorist Tense

Aorist Tense is the default past tense in Greek. It refers to a simple past action, i.e. an action with no other characteristics (like duration, or it's results being important for the present) specified or emphasized. This is the most used past tense. Hence, one can mostly use Past Simple, when translating Aorist into English. (i.e. I opened the door)

The Active and Middle voices of the Aorist Tense are formed using the stem of the Third Principal Part. However, all verbs divide into two categories depending on how the Third Principal Part is formed, and what endings are used, namely, First Aorist Verbs & Second Aorist Verbs. One can think about the verbs belonging to the first category as regular and to the second category as irregular. One can identify if the verb belongs to the first or the second category by looking at the ending of the Third Principal Part. The First Aorist Verbs have the Third Principal Part ending on -α (i.e. λύω -- ἔλυσα), and the Second Aorist Verbs have the Third Principal Part ending on -ον (i.e. λαμβάνω -- ἔλαβον).

The Thirds Principal Part of the First Aorist Verbs is formed in the following way. First the Second Principal Part is taken (see here on its formation) and then, similarly to the Imperfect Tense, an epsilon-augment is added: i.e. an epsilon is added at the front of the verb. Then also the ending is changed from omega (-ω) to alpha (-α). For example, the Third Principal Part of λύω is ἔλυσα.

Just like in the case of the Imperfect, there are some remarks about adding the epsilon-augment:

• If the root begins with a vowel, this vowel might contract together with the added ε, to form another vowel. For example, the Third Principal Part of ἀκούω is ἤκουσα.

• If there is a prefix, when the epsilon augment will usually be inserted between the root and the prefix. For example, the Third Principal Part of ἀπολύω is ἀπέλυσα.

There also might be other irregularities, so it's always a good idea to check, how the Third Principal Part looks in the dictionary.

First Aorist Verbs use endings similar to Imperfect but with alpha as the first vowel most of the time. Here is the conjugation chart for the First Aorist Indicative Active of λύω:

And for the First Aorist Indicative Middle:

The Third Principal Part of the Second Aorist Verbs is formed in an irregular way. That means that there is no systematic way to guess the Aorist form of such a verb, based on its Present form. Hence, Aorist forms of such verbs have to be memorized. Here one can find the list of all common Second Aorist Verbs.

 Second Aorist Verbs use the same endings as Imperfect. Here is the conjugation chart for the Second Aorist Indicative Active form of λαμβάνω:

And Second Aorist Indicative Middle:

The Passive Voice forms of the Aorist Tense are formed using the sixth Principal Part. In the Passive Voice, there is no distinction between the First and Second Aorist verbs.

One can form the sixth Principal Part starting from the first Principal Part as follows:

• One takes the stem of the first Principal Part. -- λυ

• One adds an epsilon-augment. I.e. one adds epsilon at the beginning of the stem. -- ελυ

• One adds a theta suffix at the end of the stem. -- ελυθ

After that, one needs to add a first Person, singular Aorist Indicative Passive ending -ην. Thus, the sixth Principal Part of λύω is ἐλύθην.

A number of irregularities can occur as the sixth Principal Part is formed:

• When adding the ε-augment, it needs to be added between the prefix and the stem if there is a prefix. It can also contract with other vowels. This is similar to the formation of the Imperfect Tense.

• Rarely, when adding the θ-suffix, it can contract with other consonants. For example, the sixth Principal Part of γράφω is ἐγράφην.

• The Principal Part can be formed in a completely irregular way.

However, the θ-suffix followed by η is often a good indicator of the sixth Principal Part.

The forms of the Aorist Indicative Passive are as follows: