Definition of "had" [had]

• Past tense and past participle of have. (verb)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "My vet had previously told us that Matu (pictured)  had arthritis in his back legs, and had even offered some glucosamine, a dietary supplement that is also taken by humans."
• "Those incoming congresscritters, and their successors, had/have a singular lack of wanting to gain the willing cooperation of those across the aisle. witness the threat of the so-called "nuclear option" which, at times, I almost wish they *had* exercised and that in their hubris named one of the most influential PACs the "committee for the permanent majority""
• "Another strange thing was that he had thought of the past; chronic prison day-dreamers dreamed nearly always of the future -- and of the past only as it might have been, never as it actually ~had~ been."