Definition of "past" []

• No longer current; gone by; over: His youth is past. (adjective)
• Having existed or occurred in an earlier time; bygone: past events; in years past. (adjective)
• Earlier than the present time; ago: 40 years past. (adjective)
• Just gone by or elapsed: in the past few days. (adjective)
• Having served formerly in a given capacity, especially an official one: a past president; a past inmate of a cell. (adjective)

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.

• "While past performance would definitely seem to favor the Steelers, wise investors know that “past performance is not a guarantee of results."
• "I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to all our people, both black and white, who, in the past year and before, made a contribution, however small, towards the new advances of our country further away from its painful past…"
• "On the contrary, their impression would naturally be, that the past was, essentially different from the present, or why was it _past_?"