verb
UK/vɜːb//vɝb/
verb noun: a word that indicates an action, event, or state of being.
Noun (1)
verb (plural verbs)
- A word that indicates an action, event, or state of being.
- The word “speak” is an English verb.
- In ſo moche that if any verbe be of the thyꝛde coniugation / I ſet out all his rotes and tenſes[…]1530 July 18, Iohan Palſgrave, “The Introduction”, in Leſclarciſſement de la langue francoyſe […] , London: Richard Pynſon, Iohan Haukyns, →OCLC, page 32; reprinted as Lesclarcissement de la langue...
- Any word; a vocable.
- a Verb of the Singular1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London
- 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.
- A named command that performs a specific operation on an object.
- 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.1995, Adam Denning, OLE Controls Inside Out, page 321
- 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.2016, Ada Gavrilovska, Attaining High Performance Communications: A Vertical Approach
Verb
verb (third-person singular simple present verbs, present participle verbing, simple past and past participle verbed)
- To use any word that is or was not a verb (especially a noun) as if it were a verb.
- 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...a. 1981 Feb 22, unknown Guardian editor as quoted by William Safire, On Language, in New York Times, pSM3
- 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.1993 January 25, Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes
- Used as a placeholder for any verb.
- For example, one-part versions of the proposition "The doctor pursued the lawyer" were "The doctor verbed the object," ...1946, Rand Corporation, The Rand Paper Series
- Each sentence had the same basic structure: The subject transitive verbed the object who intransitive verbed in the location.1964, Journal of Mathematical Psychology
Noun (2)
verb (plural verbs)
verb meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
verb in Hindi
- (grammar) a word that indicates an action, event, or a state
- क्रिया kriyā, क्रियापद kriyāpad
verb in Tamil
- (grammar) a word that indicates an action, event, or a state
- வினைச்சொல் viṉaiccol, வினை viṉai
verb in Marathi
- (grammar) a word that indicates an action, event, or a state
- क्रियापद kriyāpad
verb in Urdu
- (grammar) a word that indicates an action, event, or a state
- فِعْل fi'l
More languagesFewer languages
- verb in Bengali
- ক্রিয়াপদ kriẏapod, ক্রিয়া kriẏa
- verb in Telugu
- క్రియ kriya
- verb in Malayalam
- ക്രിയ kriya
- verb in Kannada
- ಕ್ರಿಯಾಪದ kriyāpada
- verb in Punjabi
- ਕਿਰਿਆ kiriā
- verb in Gujarati
- ક્રિયાપદ kriyāpad
- verb in Odia
- କ୍ରିୟା kriyā
- verb in Sanskrit
- क्रिया kriyā, क्रियापद kriyāpada
- verb in Sinhala
- ක්රියා පද kriyā pada, ක්රියාව kriyāwa
- verb in Assamese
- ক্ৰিয়া kria
- verb in Nepali
- क्रिया kriyā
- verb in Pashto
- فعل fe'l
- verb in Tagalog
- pandiwa
- verb in Arabic
- فِعْل fiʕl
- verb in Malay
- kata kerja
- verb in Indonesian
- kata kerja, verba
- verb in Thai
- คำกริยา grì-yaa, กริยา grì-yaa
- verb in Vietnamese
- động từ
- verb in Myanmar
- ကြိယာ kri.ya
- Dhivehi
- ކއަނ kan
- Kashmiri
- کرٛاوُت krāvut
Examples of verb in a sentence
- Haig, in congressional hearings before his confirmatory, paradoxed his auditioners by abnormalling his responds so that verbs were nouned, nouns verbed and adjectives adverbised.a. 1981 Feb 22, unknown Guardian editor as quoted by William Safire, On Language, in New York Times, pSM3
- Records have been broken, races have been dedicated, dreams have been dreamed, starts have been falsed and nouns have been verbed.2011 September 1, Harry Pearson, “London 2012 can legacy by verbing the noun”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 22 Sep 2024:
- The sentence frame was Dan verbed Ben approaching the store.1998, Marilyn A. Walker, Aravind Krishna Joshi, Centering Theory in Discourse:
Synonyms of verb
Forms of verb
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | verbs |
| alternative form | vb. |
| alternative form | v. |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | verbs |
| present participle | verbing |
| past participle | verbed |
| past | verbed |
| second-person singular present (archaic) | verbest |
| second-person singular past (archaic) | verbedst |
| third-person singular present (archaic) | verbeth |
Origin of verb
From Middle English verbe, directly from Latin verbum (“word, verb”), reinforced by Old French verbe, from Proto-Indo-European *werdʰo-. Doublet of verve and word.
Clipping of reverb.
Words formed from verb
- abstract verb
- action verb
- adverb
- attributive verb
- auxiliary verb
- boot verb
- catenative verb
- causal verb
- concrete verb
- control verb
- copular verb
- coverb
- defective verb
- definite verb
- determinate verb
- deverbative
- direct verb
- ditransitive verb
- dynamic verb
- ergative verb
- finite verb
- full verb
- guess the verb
- helper verb
- helping verb
- HTTP verb
- impersonal verb
- indefinite verb
- indeterminate verb
- intradirective verb
- intransitive verb
- irregular verb
- labile verb
- lexical verb
- light verb
- linking verb
- link verb
- main verb
- middle verb
- modal verb
- monotransitive verb
- multiverb
- negative verb
- non-finite verb
- nonverb
- particle verb
- phrasal prepositional verb
- phrasal verb
- potential verb
- prepositional verb
- preterite-present verb
- preverb
- progressive verb
- pronominal verb
- pro-verb
- pseudoverb
- psych verb
- regular verb
- reporting verb
- separable verb
Phrases with verb
- shoe verb
- verb form
- weak verb
- verb forms
- strong verb
- vector verb
- verb phrase
- stative verb
- verb phrases
- weather verb
- adjective verb
- causative verb
5 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with verb
Questions about verb
- What does verb mean?
- Verb means a word that indicates an action, event, or state of being.
- What is verb in Hindi?
- Verb in Hindi is क्रिया (kriyā), क्रियापद (kriyāpad). See Verb meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use verb in a sentence?
- Haig, in congressional hearings before his confirmatory, paradoxed his auditioners by abnormalling his responds so that verbs were nouned, nouns verbed and adjectives adverbised.
- What part of speech is verb?
- Verb can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce verb?
- Verb is pronounced /vɜːb/ (UK).
- What is the plural of verb?
- The plural of verb is verbs.
Words near verb in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: verb (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-verb.ogg.
Cite this entry: “verb.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/verb. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.