Verb Definition, Examples, Types of Verbs and Words

Verb Definition

Verb Definition: It’s a very common question what verb is? A verb is a word or group of words that is used in a sentence to indicate that something happens or exists, for example, happen, be, do, etc. In simple terms, a word that describes an action or the occurrence of an event is called a verb. In English Grammar, a verb is a word that we use to refer to actions (what things do) and states of being (how things are). 

For instance, consider a few simple sentences,

“I am reading this article.”  In this sentence, ‘reading’ is a verb describing a usual action. 

“Jacob walks in the morning”. In this sentence, ‘walks’ is a verb describing a usual action

“Stephen is going to school”. In this sentence, ‘going’ is a verb describing a condition of action.

Verb Examples

Verbs are an important part of the English language and is classified under Parts of Speech. Let’s consider some more verb examples in the following table.

Verb Examples List

A detailed list of Verb Examples is discussed below. You can learn the verb forms from the table given below to increase your English vocabulary.

Verb Meaning in Hindi

क्रिया is the Hindi translation of a Verb. A Verb is a part of speech that is been taught in both English & Hindi subjects. The definition or meaning of Verb (क्रिया) is explained as- क्रिया एक शब्द है जिसका प्रयोग कुछ कार्य, भावना या अस्तित्व को व्यक्त करने के लिए किया जाता है. यह हमें एक वाक्य में विषय के बारे में कुछ बताता है | जैसे; सोना, जागना, पढ़ना, घूमना, नाचना, बात करना, समझना, पूछना आदि |

Types of Verb

The are two types of verbs in English Grammar. The classification is as follows.

 Sometimes the Auxiliary Verbs are also known as helping verbs. There is a further classification of Auxiliary Verbs and Main Verbs as follows.

Auxiliary Verb

As told earlier, auxiliary verbs are more commonly known as helping verbs. So as the name suggests, the helping verbs or the auxiliary verbs are used to support the main verb to describe an action. Let’s understand through an example. Consider the following sentence,

“Amit is jogging regularly to reduce fat.”

Here ‘Jogging’ is the main verb that describes the action being done by Amit and “is” is the auxiliary verb. This makes the sentence more apparent by telling that the action is being done in the present time. Suppose the above sentence would have been written like this,

“Amit was jogging regularly to reduce fat.”

Here the main verb (jogging) is the same but the auxiliary verb is changed to “was”. By doing so, it becomes apparent that the action was being done in the past. Now we have a rough idea of how Auxiliary verbs (Helping Verbs) assist the main verb to describe the action more specifically. Let’s discuss the main verbs.

Main Verb

Whenever a sentence describes some action, there has to be a main verb in the sentence. The main verb expresses or describes the principal action being done by the subject. It tells about the basic purpose of the sentence. Let’s understand through some examples. Consider the following sentences,

“He was trembling in the cold weather.”

In this sentence, “trembling” is the main verb. It tells about the main idea and action of the sentence. It tells what action is being done by the subject.

Transitive and Intransitive Verbs: The main difference between transitive and intransitive verbs is that with transitive verbs there has to be an object while with intransitive verbs the object is not required. Let’s understand through an example,

“The principal discussed the indiscipline issue with the teachers.”   (Correct)

“The principal discussed with the teachers.”                                    (Incorrect)

In these two sentences, the main verb is “discussed”, which can’t be used without an object. The verb “discuss” requires an object with it. The second sentence seems confusing as it’s not clear what was discussed with the teachers.

Verb Forms

Most of the verbs have three forms. The three verb forms are given below.

1. Present Verb

2. Past Verb

3. Past Participle Verb

For a particular verb, these forms can be the same or different. See the below table

Phrasal Verbs

When an adverb or a preposition is combined with a verb then the whole term gives a new meaning. These types of terms are called phrasal verbs. For example,

“Break down – get upset”

Here the verb ‘break’ is combined with the preposition ‘down’. Individually these two terms have different meanings but when these two words are combined together, the whole phrase gives a different meaning.

List of Important Phrasal Verbs

Verb Forms in English- Click to Reading