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
Praise with verbs Huberman explains it in simple terms: no more nouns. Alexa Mikhail, Fortune Well, 9 Aug. 2023 And so it's always been about sort of keeping it really simple, but also keeping really physical stories, using really physical language, not using concepts like thought verbs, using much more active verbs. Bill Goodykoontz, The Arizona Republic, 2 Sep. 2023 Even Verizon invested big into video conferencing, snapping up BlueJeans for around $400 million and making vague promises about integrating it with 5G. Zoom, meanwhile, became a verb and a household name practically overnight. Jay Peters, The Verge, 12 Aug. 2023 Just as toddlers develop a deep knowledge of different classes of words without being taught what a noun or a verb is, crossword solvers develop strong intuitions about what entries are possible and how they can be clued. Scott Anderbois, The Atlantic, 6 Aug. 2023 For objects of verbs and prepositions, use me, you, him, her, it, us, and them. Richard Lederer, San Diego Union-Tribune, 27 May 2023 But the absence of one verb from the policy announcement was quickly noticed by investors, sending ripples through European markets. Chelsey Dulaney, WSJ, 27 July 2023 Digest would be a more appropriate verb—digesting training data to carry out their function: predicting the best next word in a sequence. WIRED, 25 July 2023 While apps like Duolingo are known for hammering in vocabulary through simple flashcard-type quizzes, Rosetta Stone progresses to verbs and conjugation through more complex learning models. Anna Tingley, Variety, 5 June 2023 See More

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 23 Sep. 2023.

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)

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