verb
EnglishEdit
Alternative formsEdit
EtymologyEdit
From Middle English verbe, directly from Latin verbum (“word, verb”) and possibly or reinforced by Old French verbe, from Proto-Indo-European *werdʰo-. Doublet of verve and word.
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
verb (plural verbs)
- (grammar) A word that indicates an action, event, or state of being.
- The word “speak” is an English verb.
- 1530 July 18, Iohan Palſgrave, “The Introduction”, in Leſclarciſſement de la langue francoyſe […] [1], London: Richard Pynſon, Iohan Haukyns, →OCLC, page 32; reprinted as Lesclarcissement de la langue françoyse, Genève: Slatkine Reprints, 1972:
- In ſo moche that if any verbe be of the thyꝛde coniugation / I ſet out all his rotes and tenſes […]
- (obsolete) Any word; a vocable.
- 1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), 6th edition, London: […] J[ames] Bettenham, for Jonah Bowyer, […], published 1727, →OCLC:
- a Verb of the Singular
- (figurative) An action as opposed to a trait or thing.
- Kindness is a verb, not an adjective. You're only kind if you do kind things.
- (programming) A named command that performs a specific operation on an object.
- 1995, Adam Denning, OLE Controls Inside Out (page 321)
- You can invoke the Properties OLE verb in many ways. The easiest way is to move the mouse over the border of the control until it becomes only a four-way pointer and then right-click.
- 2016, Ada Gavrilovska, Attaining High Performance Communications: A Vertical Approach:
- The InfiniBand verbs, which are closely modeled in the “Gen2” interface, provide the functional specification for the operations that should be allowed on an InfiniBand compliant adapter.
- 1995, Adam Denning, OLE Controls Inside Out (page 321)
Usage notesEdit
Verbs compose a fundamental category of words in most languages. In an English clause, a verb forms the head of the predicate of the clause. In many languages, verbs uniquely conjugate for tense and aspect.
QuotationsEdit
- 2001 — Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl, p 221
- Then you could say that the doorway exploded. But the particular verb doesn't do the action justice. Rather, it shattered into infinitesimal pieces.
HyponymsEdit
- See: Thesaurus:verb
Derived termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
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VerbEdit
verb (third-person singular simple present verbs, present participle verbing, simple past and past participle verbed)
- (transitive, nonstandard, colloquial) To use any word that is or was not a verb (especially a noun) as if it were a verb.
- a. 1981 Feb 22, unknown Guardian editor as quoted by William Safire, On Language, in New York Times, pSM3
- Haig, in congressional hearings before his confirmatory, paradoxed his auditioners by abnormalling his responds so that verbs were nouned, nouns verbed and adjectives adverbised. He techniqued a new way to vocabulary his thoughts so as to informationally uncertain anybody listening about what he had actually implicationed... .
- 1993 January 25, Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson
- I like to verb words.... I take nouns and adjectives and use them as verbs. Remember when "access" was a thing? Now it's something you DO. It got verbed. Verbing weirds language.
- 1997, David. F. Griffiths, Desmond J. Higham, learning LATEX, p8
- Nouns should never be verbed.
- 2005 Oct 5, Jeffrey Mattison, Letters, in The Christian Science Monitor, p8
- In English, verbing nouns is okay
- a. 1981 Feb 22, unknown Guardian editor as quoted by William Safire, On Language, in New York Times, pSM3
- (used as a neutral, unspecific verb, often in linguistics and the social sciences) To perform any action that is normally expressed by a verb.
- 1946: Rand Corporation, The Rand Paper Series
- For example, one-part versions of the proposition "The doctor pursued the lawyer" were "The doctor verbed the object," ...
- 1964: Journal of Mathematical Psychology
- Each sentence had the same basic structure: The subject transitive verbed the object who intransitive verbed in the location.
- 1998: Marilyn A. Walker, Aravind Krishna Joshi, Centering Theory in Discourse
- The sentence frame was Dan verbed Ben approaching the store. This sentence frame was followed in all cases by He went inside.
- 1946: Rand Corporation, The Rand Paper Series
ConjugationEdit
infinitive | (to) verb | ||
---|---|---|---|
present tense | past tense | ||
1st-person singular | verb | verbed | |
2nd-person singular | verb, verbest† | verbed, verbedst† | |
3rd-person singular | verbs, verbeth† | verbed | |
plural | verb | ||
subjunctive | verb | verbed | |
imperative | verb | — | |
participles | verbing | verbed |
QuotationsEdit
- For quotations using this term, see Citations:verb.
See alsoEdit
AnagramsEdit
BretonEdit
EtymologyEdit
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
verb m (plural verboù)
Derived termsEdit
CatalanEdit
EtymologyEdit
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
verb m (plural verbs)
Derived termsEdit
Related termsEdit
Further readingEdit
- “verb” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
Norwegian BokmålEdit
EtymologyEdit
NounEdit
verb n (definite singular verbet, indefinite plural verb or verber, definite plural verba or verbene)
Derived termsEdit
ReferencesEdit
- “verb” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
Norwegian NynorskEdit
EtymologyEdit
NounEdit
verb n (definite singular verbet, indefinite plural verb, definite plural verba)
Derived termsEdit
ReferencesEdit
- “verb” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.
RomanianEdit
EtymologyEdit
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
verb n (plural verbe)
DeclensionEdit
SwedishEdit
NounEdit
verb n
DeclensionEdit
Declension of verb | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Singular | Plural | |||
Indefinite | Definite | Indefinite | Definite | |
Nominative | verb | verbet | verb | verben |
Genitive | verbs | verbets | verbs | verbens |
SynonymsEdit
HyponymsEdit
Related termsEdit
DescendantsEdit
ReferencesEdit
AnagramsEdit
VepsEdit
EtymologyEdit
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
NounEdit
verb
InflectionEdit
Inflection of verb (inflection type 5/sana) | |||
---|---|---|---|
nominative sing. | verb | ||
genitive sing. | verban | ||
partitive sing. | verbad | ||
partitive plur. | verboid | ||
singular | plural | ||
nominative | verb | verbad | |
accusative | verban | verbad | |
genitive | verban | verboiden | |
partitive | verbad | verboid | |
essive-instructive | verban | verboin | |
translative | verbaks | verboikš | |
inessive | verbas | verboiš | |
elative | verbaspäi | verboišpäi | |
illative | verbaha | verboihe | |
adessive | verbal | verboil | |
ablative | verbalpäi | verboilpäi | |
allative | verbale | verboile | |
abessive | verbata | verboita | |
comitative | verbanke | verboidenke | |
prolative | verbadme | verboidme | |
approximative I | verbanno | verboidenno | |
approximative II | verbannoks | verboidennoks | |
egressive | verbannopäi | verboidennopäi | |
terminative I | verbahasai | verboihesai | |
terminative II | verbalesai | verboilesai | |
terminative III | verbassai | — | |
additive I | verbahapäi | verboihepäi | |
additive II | verbalepäi | verboilepäi |
ReferencesEdit
- Zajceva, N. G.; Mullonen, M. I. (2007), “глагол”, in Uz’ venä-vepsläine vajehnik / Novyj russko-vepsskij slovarʹ [New Russian–Veps Dictionary], Petrozavodsk: Periodika