Greek Aorist (Mood Goes Here) Active

This post will cover the aorist tense in the active voice, across the indicative, infinitive, subjunctive, optative and imperative moods. The aorist tense has simple aspect and past time, equivalent to the English, ”I did.”

As with the present tense, note that the infinitive, subjunctive, optative and imperative moods refer to aspect only, and not time. Infinitives also do not provide person or number.

The Aorist Active, in all the moods presented in this post, is based on Principal Part 3, the 1st Person Singular Aorist Indicative Active. To form the indicative, take PP3 and remove the ending . This will leave you with the augmented aorist active tense stem. It is made up of the a stem plus a past indicative augment. To this stem add the appropriate ending for the person, number and mood (assuming tense and voice for this post are fixed, of course). To form the infinitive, subjunctive and optative, take the augmented aorist active tense stem and remove the past indicative augment to form the unaugmented aorist active tense stem.

Indicative Translation Subjunctive Optative
1st Person Singular (1ps) I did -αιμι
2nd Person Singular (2ps) -ας you (s.) did -ῃς -αις/-ειας
3rd Person Singular (3ps) -ε[ν] he/she/it did -ῃ -αι/-ειε(ν)
1st Person Plural (1pp) -αμεν we did -ωμεν -αιμεν
2nd Person Plural (2pp) -ατε you (p.) did -ητε -αιτε
3rd Person Plural (3pp) -αν they did -ωσι[ν] -αιεν/-ειαν
N/A -αι to do
2nd Person Singular (2ps) -ον do!
3nd Person Singular (3ps) -ατω let… do!
2nd Person Plural (2pp) -ατε do!
3nd Person Plural (3pp) -αντων let… do!


As previously stated, accent on verbs is typically recessive. Unlike the noun ending -αι, which counts as short for the purpose of accentuation, the optative ending -αι is always long. The infinitive ending -αι remains short, however the accent always remains over the penult, a circumflex when the rules for accent allow it.

The sets of endings on the 2ps, 3ps and 3pp aorist optative active are used alternately with no change of meaning. In the 3ps aorist indicative active, the 3pp aorist subjunctive active and the 3ps aorist optative active there is a movable similar to that found in the present tense.

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3 Responses to Greek Aorist (Mood Goes Here) Active

  1. Jordan Richards says:

    What are some careers in linguistics? Thank you in advance, I know it’s not really related to the rest of the page. Just thought a linguist could help with the question.

    • George says:

      I know I want to use linguistics to do Bible translation and/or foreign missions. A number of organizations (say Wycliffe and the SBC’s International Mission Board are two examples I can think of) use people trained in linguistics this way. But there are other organizations that do English as a second language as an inroad to missions. If you are looking for something secular, I’m not so sure. I’m sure linguistics could get you into a job as a translator, or working with cryptography, or instruction (like teaching OTHER people languages or language-acquisition skills.

      But I may not be the best person to really tell you what is possible, seeing as I’m a hobbyist who would like to be full time with linguistics, and isn’t :(

  2. I was suggested this website through my cousin. I am now not positive whether this publish is written via him as nobody else realize such unique approximately my trouble. You’re amazing! Thanks!

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