Log in or Sign up

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. Third person singular present indicative of be.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. An abbreviation of island.
  2. A northern, and especially Scottish, form of -ish, as in Scottis (contracted Scots) for Scottish, Inglis for Inglish (English), etc.
  3. An obsolete form of -es.
  4. An obsolete form of -es.
  5. The third person singular present indicative of the verb be. See be. The form is was formerly, and is still dialectally, used for all persons of the singular, and in negro speech also for all persons of the plural. Such use in Chaucer, as in modern authors, is in imitation of dialect speech.

Wiktionary

  1. v. third-person singular simple present indicative form of be.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. The third person singular of the substantive verb be, in the indicative mood, present tense. See be.

Etymologies

  1. Middle English, from Old English; see es- in Indo-European roots.

Examples

  • “This misses the point that, to a large extent, the west *is* much better at capitalism than the BRICs... the infrastructure we have by way of UK company law, or the big-4 accountants, or the magic circle law firms is simply much more developed, and offers better scrutiny and outcomes than anything else on offer; and we are rightly world leading in many of these areas.”

    The Guardian: The optimists of Davos past now face a world whose script has gone awry | Timothy Garton Ash

  • “English in India as is the case in a great many newly Anglophone regions from the Carribean to Cameroon *is* evolving divergently from the forms used in older historically Anglophone countries.”

    World Affairs Article: Let Languages Die

  • “Actually the book is not depressing at least as post-apocalyptic fiction goes, on the contrary it is one of the most pleasurable such I've read; on the other hand *it is* post-apocalyptic fiction so to speak, so if that does not appeal to you or like in my case, it appeals only once in a while...”

    "Things We Didn't See Coming" by Steven Amsterdam (Reviewed by Liviu Suciu)

  • “Perhaps this is just a roundabout way of consoling myself over my French reading speed, by telling myself I can only go up from here if I just put effort, that I'm over the big hurdle already and have only up to go, but it *is* a comforting thought for me.”

    Archive 2010-03-01

  • “It really is a shame, because the cover they came up with *is* beautiful and I'm sure they could have found something to use it for that would have been appropriate.”

    In which I finally talk about that Dragon and the Stars Cover

  • “Actually, the whole "We Were Promised Jetpacks" meme and it is a meme, at lease enough for it to become the name of a rather good band, is more about the realisation that since science fiction became popular the future we were "promised", 50, 40, 30 years ago can now largely be considered a dead end, and that the one we have *is* in many ways better.”

    Why I'm Glad We Never Got Our Jetpacks

  • “In other words, the Man in Black is the good guy and Jacob actually *is* the devil, or at least malevolence incarnate.”

    LOST Satisfaction

  • “Nevertheless, as I mentioned in the main post, it is totally impossible to argue that Long et al. does not directly address the evolutionary origin of new genetic information, since the origin of new genes with new functions *is* the origin of new genetic information, since IDists themselves say again and again that functioning gene sequences contain information.”

    Random responses to Luskin on evolution of creationism, quotes, and information - The Panda's Thumb

  • “The problem I was thinking of is that the wave packet group velocity _is_ the particle velocity.”

    Faster-Than-Light Pulsar Phenomena | Universe Today

  • “Hate is an emotion that means someone would like to see you come to harm….and so far, the people who call for the most harm to be inflicted on others'…..is coming from islamic groups and their "progressive" friends. wsam says:”

    Rights and Democracy: Did the right hand know what the right hand was doing? - Inkless Wells - Macleans.ca

Show 10 more examples...

Related Words

Log in or sign up to add your own related words.

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘is’.

More lists containing ‘is’

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • tbtabby Means "ice cream" in Norwegian. Jul 13, 2009
  • yarb Damned limey writers taking American jobs! Jan 17, 2008
  • chained_bear On the first few seasons of "MythBusters" (Discovery Channel), the narrator kept saying "The build team are working on..." and it drove me *batshit* crazy. I figured someone must have emailed them about it or they switched writers or something, because they suddenly started going for the subject-verb agreement and saying "the build team is..." Chained_bear happy. Jan 17, 2008
  • reesetee You could make the case either way, yarb. In fact, The Chicago Manual of Style, the guide many U.S. book editors follow, actually maintains that when used in a collective sense, such a noun may take either a singular or plural verb form. The difference depends on whether you want to emphasize the group or the individual members. Examples given: "The ruling majority is unlikely to share power" and "The majority of voters are satisfied" are both correct. The only proviso noted is that the writer keep the verb form consistent for each noun to avoid confusion. So by this standard, if uselessness wanted to, he could make the case for "There are a bunch of kids in the theater," although generally collective nouns take a singular verb in these here parts.

    What say you, sionnach? Any UK editors out there want to weigh in? ;-) Jan 16, 2008
  • yarb Okay, editors and editrices, what about when I'm talking about a team? In the UK, teams are plural. So the England football team are a laughing stock. Arsenal were lucky on the weekend. But in North America, teams are singular, so the Canadian soccer team is a perennial underachiever. The American hockey team isn't any good. To my ears this sounds so, so wrong. But is it?

    Is one of these technically gramatically right and the other wrong, or is this a case of a legitimate transatlantic double standard? Jan 16, 2008
  • reesetee Nah, you don't fail. It does sound funny, but yes, in general collective nouns go with "is." Now, "lot" doesn't follow that. You wouldn't say "A lot of people is going to the concert," for example, but you could say "A lot of antique lamps is going to be auctioned tomorrow" (defining lot here as a distinct parcel of merchandise.) Depends on what the definition of "lot" is.

    English ain't for sissies. ;-) Jan 16, 2008
  • uselessness I guess I fail at Wordieing... Jan 16, 2008
  • sionnach What reesetee said. "is" is correct - if "are" doesn't sound wrong to you, maybe you're not trying hard enough. Jan 16, 2008
  • uselessness So it applies to all groups: a ton, a plethora, a multitude, a lot? If you say so, dude, if you say so. But my inner writer, the part of me concerned with sentence flow, doesn't want to agree. Jan 16, 2008
  • reesetee Easy. "Is." Even if it sounds wrong. All the respectable pedants are saying it. :-)

    Sincerely yours, A Crusty Old Editor Jan 16, 2008
  • uselessness Go ahead and answer, if you're man enough. ;-) Jan 16, 2008
  • reesetee *trying to figure out whether those are rhetorical questions* Jan 16, 2008
  • uselessness Which is proper: "There are a bunch of kids in the theater" or "there is a bunch of kids in the theater"? Supposedly, the latter is more grammatically correct, but it just sounds wrong. What's a respectable pedant to do? I guess it all depends on what the definition of "is" is. ;-) Jan 16, 2008

‘is’ has been looked up 9593 times, loved by 1 person, added to 40 lists, commented on 13 times, and has a Scrabble score of 2.