Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The part of speech that expresses existence, action, or occurrence in most languages.
- n. Any of the words belonging to this part of speech, as be, run, or conceive.
- n. A phrase or other construction used as a verb.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. If. A word; a vocable.
- n. In grammar, a word that asserts or declares; that part of speech of which the office is predication, and which, either alone or with various modifiers or adjuncts, combines with a subject to make a sentence. Predication is the essential function of a verb, and this function is all that makes a verb; that distinctions of tense and mode and person should be involved in a verb-form, as is the case in the languages of our family and in some other languages, is unessential, and those distinctions may be and are sometimes wanting. Infinitives and participles are not verbs, but only verbal nouns and adjectives, sharing in the constructions that belong to a verb. In languages like ours, the most important classification of verbs is into transitive and intransitive; and even that is not definite, nor founded on any essential distinction. Abbreviated v.
Wiktionary
- n. grammar A word that indicates an action, event, or state.
- v. transitive, nonstandard, colloquial To use any word that is not a verb (especially a noun) as if it were a verb.
- v. To perform any action that is normally expressed by a verb.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete A word; a vocable.
- n. (Gram.) A word which affirms or predicates something of some person or thing; a part of speech expressing being, action, or the suffering of action.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the word class that serves as the predicate of a sentence
- n. a content word that denotes an action, occurrence, or state of existence
Etymologies
- From Old French verbe, from Latin verbum ("word"), from Proto-Indo-European *werdʰo-. Etymological twin of word. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English verbe, from Old French, from Latin verbum, word, verb (translation of Greek rhēma, word, verb). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“But the preposition is more frequently placed after the verb, and separately from it, like an adverb; in which situation it does not less affect the sense of the verb, and give it a new meaning; and in all instances, whether the preposition is placed either before or after the verb, if it gives a new meaning to the verb, it may be considered as _a part of the verb_.”
“_The relative is the nominative case to the verb, when no nominative comes between it and the verb_.”
“_ A verb whose action passes over to the object directly, as in the sentence above, is called a «transitive verb».”
“It must, one would think, have been the badness of the ` ` copy '' that induced the compositors to turn ` ` the nature and theory of the Greek verb '' into _the native theology of the Greek verb_; ` ` the conser < p 124 > vation of energy '' into the _conversation of energy_; and the ` ` Forest Conservancy”
“Use the correct form of the verb (verb + ing or to +verb) to fill in the blanks.? en Español”
“For I do not call not-man a noun, but an in - definite noun; since an indefinite noun in a certain respect signifies one thing®; just as is not zcdl, is not a verb, but an indefinite verb* But”
“The verb names to filter on (optional) param ([Parameter (ValueFromPipeline = $true, Position = 0)] [string []] $verb = "*") begin {”
“The verb comes from the Latin word rubrica, which means 'red chalk or ochre'.”
“The slang verb to gig, as in “let the taxpayer get gigged,” primarily means “to cheat.””
Simon & Schuster: The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time
“Also, I now believe that where I used the term verb we should use the term action as I think that verb is best reserved for when we enrichen TWiki's linguistic capabilities.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘verb’.
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Word Words
This used to be my nym list, but there are so many words about words, I think it's time to expand and open.
acronym, antonym, aptronym, autoantonym, autonym, bacronym, capitonym, contranym, contronym, eponym, exonym, heteronym and 120 more...
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Language
word, sentence, novel, book, novella, vignette, memoir, anthology, paragraph, stanza, poem, haiku and 123 more...
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SPOR - Olympic glossary
weightlift, orbitale, figure skate, speed skate, synchronizer, equestrian sport, bobsleigh, starting block, diesis, ligne, piste, water ski and 521 more...
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INTERP - terminology management terms
Terms from the fields of terminology, lexicography, lexicology and corpus linguistics
reworder, rewording, parser, parsing, tagger, tagging, aligner, aligning, content analysis, content analyzer, corpus management, glossary and 546 more...
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AGRI - horse breeding
place bet, Przewalski's horse, piaffe, genus Claviceps, stadium jumping, draft animal, snaffle bit, noseband, equestrian sport, endurance riding, curb bit, dressage and 678 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...conferral, stateless, person, voting, right, subsidiarity, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and 2614 more...
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Word Words
Words that describe other words
adverb, verb, noun, adjective, pronoun, Synonym, antonym, phrase, dictionary, grammar, word, passage and 19 more...
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Meta-verb
Analysis' language
inflection, Mood, Indicative, Subjunctive, Tense, Conjugation, conjugation, verb, present participle, past participle, infinitive, past tense
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Linguistic terminology
phonics, phonology, morphology, morphemes, metathesis, allomorphs, phonemes, linguistics, vowel, consonant, noun, pronoun and 6 more...
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colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
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zzyyxx's Words
plethora, drout, functional, rye, wring, doubt, cognative, weird, gnaw, surcease, rend, languish and 438 more...
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Words about words
Most of these describe word patterns or relationships between words.
panvocalic, palindrome, anagram, transposition, antigram, reversal, isogram, alternade, trinade, beheadment, decapitation, apheresis and 149 more...
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English grammar
terms relevant to English grammar
phrase, clause, sentence, complement, modifier, adjunct, specifier, constituent, syntax, bar level, supplement, coordination and 285 more...
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linguistics
words associated with language and linguistics
subjunctive, grammar, accent, adjective, adverb, bilingual, case, conjugation, consonant, creole, dialect, diphthong and 33 more...
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Words I like
Do you need a reason?
supergrass, mastermind, solipsism, oblate, redoubtable, dracul, zip gun, crap out, apropos, beanpole, barechestdness, verb
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Adofoadom
Grammatical terms.
verbal, noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, interjection, diction, conjunction, syntax, ornamental
Tweets
Looking for tweets for verb.
fbharjo How to subverb! That is the question! Or is that subver(b)sive?
Or is it the use of ad(d)verbs? (that is subversive?) Apr 2, 2012
YeOldeWorde Make verb and subject agree to disagree is what makes a great writer. Or a crappy one. Apr 2, 2012
BrainyBabe Corio - Possibly with symbols.
Telegram from Mark Twain , ignorant of new book sales, to publisher: ?
Publisher to Mark Twain: ! Dec 26, 2008
corylusavellana How would we get anything done without verbs? Dec 25, 2008
seanahan Verb is a noun, and noun is a noun. I enjoy words which describe themselves, and the opposite, words which don't describe themselves. Monosyllabic and polysyllabic have to be the champion examples for this phenomenon. Mar 5, 2008
reesetee Exactly right. Well, it was, but it escaped somehow. Mar 5, 2008
chained_bear Your tongue wasn't cheeked, you mean? Mar 4, 2008
reesetee My tongue was apparently not as firmly in cheek as I thought it was. ;-) Mar 4, 2008
chained_bear What are you talking about? I go around nouning things all the time. Mar 4, 2008
reesetee If only noun were a verb.... Mar 4, 2008
john It is indeed.
I love that verb is a noun. Mar 4, 2008
seanahan That's a fabulous language quote. Mar 4, 2008
chained_bear "'We studied the Malay language together, when he was well enough, and I remember his delight at the verb: no person, no number, no mood, no tense.'
"'That is the kind of verb for me,' said Jack."
--Patrick O'Brian, The Thirteen Gun Salute, 104 Mar 3, 2008
uselessness Verbs has to agree with their subjects. Jan 25, 2007