verb

1 of 2

noun

: a word that characteristically is the grammatical center of a predicate and expresses an act, occurrence, or mode of being, that in various languages is inflected for agreement with the subject, for tense, for voice, for mood, or for aspect, and that typically has rather full descriptive meaning and characterizing quality but is sometimes nearly devoid of these especially when used as an auxiliary or linking verb
verbless adjective

verb

2 of 2

verb

verbed; verbing

transitive verb

: to use (a word and especially a noun) as a verb : to make (a word) into a verb
A television announcer in Vero Beach, Fla., spoke of a promise "to upkeep the beach," thus verbing a word that had been in use as an honest noun since 1884.James Kilpatrick
But it is by no means unusual for a noun to be verbed.Theodore M. Bernstein

Did you know?

What is a verb?

Verbs are words that show an action (sing), occurrence (develop), or state of being (exist). Almost every sentence requires a verb. The basic form of a verb is known as its infinitive. The forms call, love, break, and go are all infinitives.

Almost all verbs have two other important forms called participles. Participles are forms that are used to create several verb tenses (forms that are used to show when an action happened); they can also be used as adjectives. The present participle always ends in -ing: calling, loving, breaking, going. (There is also a kind of noun, called a gerund, that is identical in form to the present participle form of a verb.) The past participle usually ends in -ed, but many past participles have irregular endings: called, loved, broken, gone.

The verb's past tense usually has the same -ed form as the past participle. For many verbs, however, the past tense is irregular. An irregular past tense is not always identical to an irregular past participle: called, loved, broke, went.

The two main kinds of verbs, transitive verbs and intransitive verbs, are discussed at the entries for transitive and intransitive.

Examples of verb in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Noun
Imagine, for starters, showing a group of non-English speakers the present and past forms of verbs like boil (boil/boiled) and chew (chew/chewed). Sheon Han, WIRED, 4 Mar. 2024 The groups could be things like horror movie franchises, a type of verb or rappers. Kris Holt, Forbes, 1 Mar. 2024 But, similar to how the noun has loss severity, the verb can also imply engaging in any degree of fandom. Olivia Munson, USA TODAY, 24 Feb. 2024 An open society sees truth as process and method—more verb than noun. Bernard Avishai, The New Yorker, 2 Feb. 2024 Prepositional idiom This idiom is a phrase that combines a verb and a preposition to create a verb with a distinct meaning. Kurt Snibbe, Orange County Register, 19 Jan. 2024 The miscellanea included twisted wood, yellowed newspaper clippings, a Russian verb finder and piles of paintings. Alex Vadukul, New York Times, 26 Jan. 2024 The transformer figures out that wants and cash are both verbs (both words can also be nouns). Timothy B. Lee and Sean Trott, Ars Technica, 31 July 2023 The verb nurabi, meaning to raise or to rear, is what a parent does for a child, or what a farmer does for crops. Mosab Abu Toha, The New Yorker, 25 Dec. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'verb.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Noun

Middle English verbe, borrowed from Anglo-French, borrowed from Latin verbum "word, verb" — more at word entry 1

First Known Use

Noun

14th century, in the meaning defined above

Verb

1928, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of verb was in the 14th century

Dictionary Entries Near verb

Cite this Entry

“Verb.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/verb. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

verb

noun
: a word that is usually the grammatical center of a predicate and expresses an act, occurrence, or state of being and that in various languages is inflected (as for agreement with the subject or for tense)

More from Merriam-Webster on verb

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