Tense:  

A property of the verb that in English indicates the time when the action or state of being occurs. In Greek, however, tense indicates not only time (when the action occurs) but also aspect (kind of action). Greek has six tenses: present, imperfect, future, aorist, perfect, and pluperfect. Tense is discerned from the pattern of several inflectional elements: verbal stem, prefixes (reduplication, augment), and suffixes (tense sign/formative, personal ending).