What's the difference between "has had," and "had had?"

Question

I was writing an essay for my school project, and I stumbled upon this type of grammatical situation and thought if anyone knew the answer to it? I've searched all over the internet but nothing satisfied my needs. Any help? Thanks!

Hmm, not sure what you searched for, but googling has had had had gave plenty of examples of this and Third conditional. "Have some more!","No, I have had enough". "If I had a hammer I would help your now","If I had had a hammer yesterday, I would have helped you then" — mplungjan, Jul 11 '13 at 05:58
More to the point, you can search this very site for "had had" or "has had". Or just head straight to How do the tenses in English correspond temporally to one another? — RegDwigнt, Jul 11 '13 at 10:56

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 11 '13 at 06:39

The first one is present perfect, and the second one is past perfect.

He has already had breakfast, so he isn't hungry. Here, he isn't hungry now because he has recently eaten. "Has had" refers to a time before now, which is related to now.

He had already had breakfast, so he wasn't hungry at 8:00. "Had had" refers to a time in the past before another time in the past. He wasn't hungry at 8:00 yesterday morning because he had already eaten before then.

What's the difference between "has had," and "had had?"

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