Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use intransitive in a sentence

20 example sentences · adjective, noun

Intransitive means not transitive: not having, or not taking, a direct object. Example: “The word "drink" is a transitive verb in "they drink wine", but an intransitive one in "they drink often."”

Examples of intransitive by meaning

adjectiveNot transitive: not having, or not taking, a direct object.

  • The word "drink" is a transitive verb in "they drink wine", but an intransitive one in "they drink often."

nounAn intransitive verb.

  • This means that subcategorization properties do not allow us to distinguish between transitives and intransitives (both types of verbs are allowed, but not obliged, to take a direct object).2011, Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin, The Syntax of Romanian: Comparative Studies in Romance, page 136

More sentences with intransitive

  • (intransitive) I think the car is overheating – we'd better pull off .From the entry pull off
  • There are 3 cardinal degrees of transitivity of any one verb: intransitive, monotransitive and ditransitive.From the entry transitivity
  • The subjects of the intransitive verbs "fall" and "burn" are experiencers.From the entry experiencer
  • In the English language, ‘sleep’ is an intransitive verb.From the entry intransitive verb
  • The database distributed verbs into transitive and intransitive segments.From the entry distribute
  • Let's move on to the consideration of intransitive prepositions.From the entry intransitive preposition
  • (intransitive) Please reply to my letter.From the entry reply
  • Although it is both transitive and intransitive, paint is not an ergative verb, because when we say "Bob paints", this is very different from when we say "Bob gets painted".From the entry ergative verb
  • “‘Feel’ is an intransitive verb in your sentence and is modified by an adjective.”2003, Toni Morrison, Love, Vintage (2016), page 126. From the entry intransitive verb
  • A kind of ‘pseudo-passive’ construction is possible, though, with intransitive verbs having a prepositional phrase complement.1971, Manindra K. Verma, The Structure of the Noun Phrase in English and Hindi, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, →OCLC, page 157. From the entry pseudopassive
  • Men have tried to turn "revolutionise" from a transitive to an intransitive verb.1908, G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy. From the entry transitive
  • The verb walked is like slept: an intransitive verb V₀.2025, Edward A. F. Gibson, “Dependency Grammar” (chapter 3), in Syntax: A Cognitive Approach, MIT Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 57. From the entry structure
  • Each sentence had the same basic structure: The subject transitive verbed the object who intransitive verbed in the location.1964, Journal of Mathematical Psychology. From the entry verb
  • We show that if psychological preferences are incomplete then revealed preferences can be intransitive without exposing agents to manipulations or violating outcome rationality.2005, Michael Mandler (February 2005), "Incomplete preferences and rational intransitivity of choice", Games and Economic Behavior…. From the entry revealed preference
  • Middle verbs in English are intransitive verbs, whereas their base verbs are transitive, that is, require a direct object to be present.2005, Geert Booij, The Grammar of Words: An Introduction to Linguistic Morphology, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN…. From the entry middle verb
  • Ergatives share close similarities with agentless passives: Both are intransitive, both lack an agent, while the patient appears in the subject position.1994, Virginia Yip, “Grammatical Consciousness-raising and Learnability”, in Terence Odlin, editor, Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar…. From the entry ergative
  • That is, nouns have a single case (nominative) marking intransitive subject and transitive object functions, and another case (ergative) for transitive subject function.1972, R[obert] M[alcolm] W[ard] Dixon, “Australian Languages”, in The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland (Cambridge Studies in…. From the entry ergative
  • In all the Apachean languages, verbs are divided into two major categories, neuters and actives, each of which may be further divided into intransitives, transitives, and passives.1971, Harry Hoijer, “Athapaskan Morphology”, in Jesse O. Sawyer, editor, Studies in American Indian Languages, University of California…. From the entry neuter

Meaning of intransitive

  1. adjective Not transitive: not having, or not taking, a direct object.
  2. adjective Not transitive or passing further; kept; detained.
  3. adjective Of a set of dice: containing three dice A, B, and C, with the property that A rolls higher than B more than half the time, and B rolls higher than C more than half the time, but lacking the property that A rolls higher than C more than half the time. See intransitive dice and intransitive game.

Full definition of intransitive

Questions about intransitive in a sentence

How do you use intransitive in a sentence?
Intransitive is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “The word "drink" is a transitive verb in "they drink wine", but an intransitive one in "they drink often."”
What is a short sentence with intransitive?
“(intransitive) Please reply to my letter.”
What does intransitive mean?
Intransitive means not transitive: not having, or not taking, a direct object.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: intransitive (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use intransitive in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/intransitive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.