Verb
Pronunciation
- US IPA: /vÉb/
- RP IPA: /vÉœËb/
- Rhymes: -ÉœË(ɹ)b
Origin
From Old French verbe, from Latin verbum ("word"), from Proto-Indo-European *werdÊ°o-. Etymological twin to word.
Usage notes
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.
Hyponyms
Derived terms
Verb
- (transitive, nonstandard, colloquial) To use any word that is 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, pSM3Haig, 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... .
- 1997, David. F. Griffiths, Desmond J. Higham, learning LATEX, p8Nouns should never be verbed.
- 2005 Oct 5, Jeffrey Mattison, Letters, in The Christian Science Monitor, p8In English, verbing nouns is okay
- (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 SeriesFor example, one-part versions of the proposition "The doctor pursued the lawyer" were "The doctor verbed the object," ...
- 1964: Journal of Mathematical PsychologyEach 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 DiscourseThe sentence frame was Dan verbed Ben approaching the store. This sentence frame was followed in all cases by He went inside.