Word.ws English Dictionary

non-verbal

Syllables: non-ver·balUK/ˌnɒnˈvɜː.bl̩//ˌnɑnˈvɝ.bl̩/

non-verbal adjective: in a form other than written or spoken words, such as gestures, facial expressions or body language.

Adjective

non-verbal (not comparable)

  1. In a form other than written or spoken words, such as gestures, facial expressions or body language.
  2. (rare) Of or relating to a word that belongs to any part of speech other than that of verbs.
    • In the Moroccan dialect of Meknès, verbal negation is by means of the circumfix ma...-š, as in (15), while nonverbal negation is primarily by means of invariable ma-ši before the nonverbal predicate, as in (16).1991, Bernard Comrie, “On the Importance of Arabic to General Linguistic Theory”, in Bernard Comrie, Mushira Eid, editors, Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics III: Papers from the Third Annual...
    • Negative prefix in Russian is a distinctive feature of nonverbal parts of speech, namesly, nouns (even those that do not denote situations, e.g. 3a), adjectives (3b), and adverbs (3c): […]2009, Anna Pazelskaya, “Three Kinds of Event Nominal Negation in Russian”, in Peter Bosch, David Gabelaia, Jérôme Lang, editors, Logic, Language, and Computation: 7th International Tbilisi Symposium...
  3. Unable to speak.

Noun

non-verbal (plural non-verbals)

  1. A sound, gesture, etc. that is not a word.

Antonyms of non-verbal

Forms of non-verbal

Adjective
alternative formnonverbal
Noun
pluralnon-verbals

Origin of non-verbal

From non- + verbal.

Phrases with non-verbal

Words that rhyme with non-verbal

Questions about non-verbal

What does non-verbal mean?
Non-verbal means in a form other than written or spoken words, such as gestures, facial expressions or body language.
What part of speech is non-verbal?
Non-verbal can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce non-verbal?
Non-verbal is pronounced /ˌnɒnˈvɜː.bl̩/ (UK).

Words near non-verbal in the dictionary

  1. non-veg
  2. non-vegetarian
  3. non-vegetarianism
  4. non-velar
  5. non-venomous
  6. non-verbal
  7. non-verbal leak
  8. non-verbal leaks
  9. non-verbals
  10. non-viable
  11. non-violence

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: non-verbal (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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