Word of the Day:
gerund
What It Means
A verbal form that functions as a verbal noun.
In some languages such as Dutch, Italian or Russian, a verbal form similar to a present participle, but functioning as an adverb to form adverbial phrases or continuous tense.
Gerund in Context
“The Spanish gerund is quite unlike the English -ing form (‘walking’, ‘replying’, ‘saying’, etc.), which can function as a gerund, a present participle, a noun or an adjective; and it is also unlike the French form ending in -ant, which covers the functions of both the Spanish gerund and the...”
Did You Know?
Learned borrowing from Latin gerundium, from gerendus (“which is to be carried out”), future passive participle (gerundive) of gerō (“carry, bear”).
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gerund (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “gerund.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gerund. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
