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Verb   Listen
noun
Verb  n.  
1.
A word; a vocable. (Obs.)
2.
(Gram.) A word which affirms or predicates something of some person or thing; a part of speech expressing being, action, or the suffering of action. Note: A verb is a word whereby the chief action of the mind (the assertion or the denial of a proposition) finds expression.
Active verb, Auxiliary verb, Neuter verb, etc. See Active, Auxiliary, Neuter, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Verb" Quotes from Famous Books



... said Gambier, letting his stick do the part of a damnatory verb on one of the enemy, while ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... a boorish mind! Grammar teaches us the laws of the verb and nominative case, as well as ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)

... let us examine this. It is evident, that the Words Private Vices, Publick Benefits make not a compleat Sentence according to Grammar; and that there is at least a Verb, if not a great deal more wanting to make the Sense perfect. In the Vindication of The Fable of the Bees, I have said, that I understood by it, that Private Vices, by the dexterous Management of a skilful Politician, might be turn'd into Publick Benefits. There ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville

... (lesolosolou) signifies "to have no intermission of pain" and "to have no cessation, as in the arrival of visitors"; and soua, used of epidemics, bears the sense of being overcome as with "fire, flood, or visitors." But the gem of the dictionary is the verb alovao, which illustrates its pages like a humorous woodcut. It is used in the sense of "to avoid visitors," but it means literally "hide in the wood." So, by the sure hand of popular speech, we have the picture of the house deserted, the malanga disappointed, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... see him down the town—saw him down the town, sir, I mean," said the boy hastily, recalling the fact that he had been corrected several times about his use of the verb ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn

... German sentence. Indignant boys, who have heard appetising tales of the days which are gone, are compelled to "swat" at Continental tongues as if they were serious languages like Latin and Greek, and are actually kept in if they have not done a French verb. They are required to write an account of their holidays in German, and are directed to enlarge their vocabulary by speaking in foreign tongues among themselves. Things have come to such a pass it is said—but I do not believe ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... confident about the flatness of the earth than any of his disciples. Under the assumed name of Parallax he visited most of the chief towns of England, propounding what he calls his system of zetetic astronomy. Why he should call himself Parallax it would be hard to say; unless it be that the verb from which the word is derived signifies primarily to shift about or dodge, and secondarily to alter a little, especially for the worse. His employment of the word zetetic is less doubtful, as he claims for ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... class. The stories, in case you didn't know, are taken line by line from the works of various popular writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The people who do the work merely substitute adjectives and adverbs. Occasionally, I'm told, a more daring hack will substitute a verb, or even a noun. But that is rare. The editors of such periodicals frown upon ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley

... gained knowledge, I tried to tell a melodramatic tale of a friend of mine whose blouse bagged and sat in wrinkles between the shoulders. It was not successful, because I was obliged to substitute the past for the present tense of the verb. ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... Yes, 'tis true, But in no sadly literal sense, With elders and coevals too, Whose verb ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... quality. The table was good, but that was exactly what Kate cared little about. The amusement was of the worst kind. It consisted chiefly in conjugating Latin verbs, especially such as were obstinately irregular. To show him a withered frost-bitten verb, that wanted its preterite, wanted its supines, wanted, in fact, everything in this world, fruits or blossoms, that make a verb desirable, was to earn the Don's gratitude for life. All day long ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... of feu sacre? When Senator Patriota sits brooding over the speech which has carried the opposition against him, and sees his honorable friend slipping into the place he has manoeuvred for at the expense of manliness, truth, consistency, and honesty, does he not conjugate the verb valoir negatively? When Madame Favorita has made her last curtsy for the night behind the foot-lights, has thrown off her tawdry frippery, and sits in her lonely chamber, glowering at the image of the young rival who has won all the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... him, for by the compensating movements the squirrel makes, he keeps his belly turned towards the man all the time, and his back turned away. Make the distinction, and there is no occasion for any farther dispute. You are both right and both wrong according as you conceive the verb 'to go round' in one practical ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... these horrors) Whenever I read That somebody "voices" A national need, As the Bulgars and Greeks Are abhorred by the Serb, So I feel toward the freaks Who employ this vile verb. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various

... enjoyed his wife's successes; he was happy in seeing her happy. He loved her dearly—a little more than she loved him. She loved him very much, and that was all. There is a great difference between dearly and very much when these two adverbs are placed after the verb to love. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... to the ultimate springs of slang? A verb which I never met before I enlisted was "to spruce." This is almost, if not quite, a blend of "swinging the lead" and "doing a mike." To spruce is to dodge duty or to deceive. A man who contrived to ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir

... 5: This is shown by the frequent employment of -es as the person ending of the verb in the present tense, plural number. The corresponding Southern verbal inflexion -eth never occurs; while the Midland -en is only occasionally met with in the third person plural present, and has been introduced by a later copyist. There are other characteristics, such ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various

... mock or contemn. A verb of very common occurrence, but, as might be expected, quite unknown to the commentators on Shakspeare, though its meaning was guessed from the context. As it would be tedious and unnecessary to write all the instances that occur, let ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various

... Peter—as he tells us, in order "to question him"—these things are certain. The Greek word ?st???sa? is a very suggestive one. It is so easy to make too much out of anything that I hardly dare to say how strongly the use of the verb ?st??e?? suggests to me "getting at the facts of the case," "questioning as to how things happened," yet such would be the most obvious meaning of the word from which our own "history" and "story" are derived. Fifteen days was time enough to give Paul ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... Engines of war.—Ver. 549. 'Tormenta.' These were the larger engines of destruction used in ancient warfare. They were so called from the verb 'torqueo,' 'to twist,' from their being formed by the twisting of hair, fibre, or strips of leather. The different sorts were called 'balistae' and 'catapultae.' The former were used to impel stones; the latter, darts and arrows. In sieges, the 'Aries,' or 'battering ram,' which received its ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... three kingdoms itself.—Let alone, in this sentence, means put out of consideration. The phrase, let alone, which is now used as the imperative of a verb, may in time become a conjunction, and may exercise the ingenuity of some future etymologist. The celebrated Horne Tooke has proved most satisfactorily, that the conjunction but comes from the imperative of the Anglo-Saxon verb (beoutan) to be out; also, that if comes from gif, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... his head and contemplating the aspect of the river under these uncommon circumstances. He was speedily brought on his heels by the sound of his master's voice, and as soon as his head was in its right position, Mr Quilp, to speak expressively in the absence of a better verb, 'punched it' ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... even in the summer his leisure minutes were few and far between. But he carried his Greek grammar in his hat, and often found a chance, while he was waiting for a large piece of iron to get hot, to open his book with his black fingers, and go through a pronoun, an adjective, or part of a verb, without being noticed ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... explicitness! Here's directness! Here's explanatoryness! In my pap days I learned that without a verb there could not be a sentence, not even a judge's sentence. I know "was" ain't much of a word all alone by itself, but then chuck it in among a lot of other fellows, and how it does make them stand around. And then it's so deliciously incomprehensible—there was. Mind you, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various

... Emerson frequently omits the principal verb of his sentences as here: "In a century there may exist one ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... eyes, and when she grew too curious, he administered an antidote in the form of a few Armenian numerals. If his Autobiography is to be credited, Isopel loved him, and he was aware of it; but the knowledge did not hinder him from torturing the poor girl by insisting that she should decline the verb "to love" in Armenian. ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... so astonished her that (the verb is her own) she simply bawled with laughter. From that moment he treated her with freedom, for if once you laugh with a person you admit him to equality, you have ranked him definitely as a vertebrate, your hand is his by right of species, ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... an altitude of 1269 metres. In Italian they call it the Verna, in Latin Alvernus. The etymology, which has tested the acuteness of the learned, appears to be very simple; the verb vernare, used by Dante, signifies make ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... her arrival, "The first Syriac word I learned was 'daughter;' and as I can now use the verb 'to give,' I often ask parents to give me their daughters. Some think that I cannot secure boarding scholars, but Mrs. Grant got day scholars; and when I hear men, women, and children say, 'How she loved us!' I want to love them too. I mean to devote at least five years ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary

... Peter. "She was English! Was she?" He bore a little on the tense of the verb. "That lets in a flood of light. And—and what, by the bye, is she ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... narrative. In the continuation Defoe's best-known mannerisms are lacking, as two instances will show. Critics have often called attention to the fact that fright, instead of frighten, was a favourite word of Defoe. Now frighten, and not fright, is the verb used in the continuation. Furthermore, I have pointed out in a previous introduction[1] that Defoe was fond of making his characters smile, to show either kindliness or shrewd penetration. They do not smile in ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe

... then, to me, that the true simple word to represent the Greek, and the most literal as well by which to translate it, is the verb mirror—when the sentence, so far, would run thus: 'But we all, with unveiled face, mirroring the glory of ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... impress upon the Prince de Ligne," interrupted Kaunitz, "that the verb 'must' is one which I am well accustomed to conjugate for others but never allow others to ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... Line 1. The verb tib with pasru expresses the aim of Gish to secure an interpretation for his dream. This disposes of Langdon's note 1 on page 211 of his edition, in which he also erroneously speaks of our text as "late." Pasru is not a variant ...
— An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic • Anonymous

... their verbs, which is much too lengthy a subject to enter on here, the auxiliary verb Ya, "to go," which plays so considerable part in the Sanskrit, appears and performs a kindred office, as if it were a radical in some language from which both had descended. But another auxiliary or opposite signification also ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... either God or a brute. No human being can say it. To describe myself as if I were a settled fact is to make myself a thing. My life is in that which may be. The ideals of existence are my realities, and "ought" is my peculiar verb. "Is" has no other application to a person than to mark how far he has advanced along his ideal line. Were he to pause at any point as if complete, he would ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer

... involuntarily think of a man missing an easy catch at cricket; it is only rarely, however, that he connects the two at all. I have only been able to find the word "inherited" or any derivative of the verb "to inherit" in connection with memory once in all the 1300 long pages of the "Principles of Psychology." It occurs in vol ii. p. 200, 2d ed., where the words stand, "Memory, inherited or acquired." I submit that this was unintelligible when Mr. Spencer wrote it, for want of an explanation ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... most marvellous quickness in learning her lessons. Though she might be a naughty child, no one could accuse her of being a dull one; she grasped the meaning of anything like lightning, and while Susan was steadily bringing her mind to bear on a French verb, Sophia Jane knew it already, and could repeat it without a mistake. She showed indeed such zeal and attention throughout the lessons, that it had a sobering effect even upon Nanna and Margaretta, who were so employed in wondering at her that they did not giggle ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton

... before the verb was reached. He tossed the coin to the tailor, and speedily returned to the waiting room where he signaled Van ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... ungrammatical ould man, an' not fit to argue wid any one that knows Murray's English Grammar, an' more espaciously the three concords of Lily's Latin one; that is the cognation between the nominative case and the verb, the consanguinity between the substantive and the adjective, and the blood-relationship that irritates between the ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... sundry words. Among them the word "n'yanzig" is the most frequent and conspicuous; and hence these gesticulations receive the general designation n'yanzig—a term which will be frequently met with, and which I have found it necessary to use like an English verb. In consequence of these salutations, there is more ceremony in court than business, though the king, ever having an eye to his treasury, continually finds some trifling fault, condemns the head of the culprit, takes ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... correspondent will find, on referring to Kilian's Dictionarium Teutonico-Latino-Gallicum, that the word Kavel is used for sors, "sors in divisione bonorum:" and among other definitions of the verb Kavelen, "sorte dividere terram," which corresponds exactly with ...
— Notes & Queries No. 29, Saturday, May 18, 1850 • Various

... everywhere to be taught for the use of learners, and for the hurt in changing of schoolmaisters." What a gusto in that which follows: "wherein it is profitable that he can orderly decline his noun, and his verb." ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... a Letter to the Governors, Instructors, and Trustees of the Universities and other Seminaries of Learning in the United States, "According to the grammars, the pronoun you, being originally plural, must always be followed by a plural verb, though referring to a single person. This is not correct, for the moment the word is generally used to denote an individual, it is to be considered as a pronoun in the singular number, the following ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder

... by ou. On the other hand the Italians lost the aspirated letters th, ph, ch, which remain in Greek, and frequently omitted the simple aspirate. They lost also the dual both in nouns and verbs, and all but a few fragmentary forms of the middle verb. In inflexion they retain the sign of the ablative (d), and, at least in Latin, the dat. plur. in bus. They express the passive by the letter r, a weakened form of the reflexive, the principle of which is reproduced in more than ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... especially, it is difficult to guess. The change of Scylla into a lark, or partridge, and of her father into a sea eagle, are poetical fictions based on the equivocal meanings of their names, the one Greek and the other Hebrew; for the name 'Ciris' resembles the Greek verb keiro, which signifies 'to clip,' or 'cut short.' 'Nisus,' too, resembles the Hebrew word 'Netz,' which means a bird resembling the osprey, or sea eagle. Apollodorus says, that Minos ordered Scylla to be thrown into the sea; and Zenodotus, that ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... A little verb used every day, Whose letters spell the same each way; My next, which means to lengthen out, Spells just the same if turned about; At close of day you'll find my third,— Reversed, you have the self-same word; My fourth, implying "held supreme," The same each ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various

... Latin version here, and that the present tense is obviously due to the translator. The original would naturally be [Greek: ton sun auto], which the translator, being obliged to supply a substantive verb, has carelessly rendered 'his qui cum eo sunt.' If any one will consider what has been just said about the general character of the Epistle, he will see that this is the only reasonable explanation of the fact, whether we regard the work as genuine or not. If it is not genuine, the forger ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... sometimes unmeaning use of qualifying formulae, os epos eipein, kata dunamin, and of double expressions, pante pantos, oudame oudamos, opos kai ope—these are too numerous to be attributed to errors in the text; again, there is an over-curious adjustment of verb and participle, noun and epithet, and other artificial forms of cadence and expression take the place of natural variety: thirdly, the absence of metaphorical language is remarkable—the style is not devoid of ornament, but the ornament is of a ...
— Laws • Plato

... Larsen, imprisoned somewhere within that flesh which had once been so invincible and splendid. Now it bound him with insentient fetters, walling his soul in darkness and silence, blocking it from the world which to him had been a riot of action. No more would he conjugate the verb "to do in every mood and tense." "To be" was all that remained to him—to be, as he had defined death, without movement; to will, but not to execute; to think and reason and in the spirit of him to be as alive as ever, but in the flesh to be dead, ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... detective powers to beg the genial little doctor of each tiny neighbourhood for Italian lessons and I learned more than his language from each. They were veritable hoards of gossip and information of all sorts, and my ever ready and unsuspected note-book held more than verb-contractions and ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... very little answer, finished her apple, and followed to the schoolroom, where an irregular verb, some geography, and some ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... bowed over his desk. He was doing an imposition, the second aorist of the abominable verb [Greek: erchomai], written out five and twenty times. (Luckily he could do the last fifteen ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair

... Interpretation," investigates language as the expression of thought; and inasmuch as a true or false thought must be expressed by the union or separation of a subject and a predicate, he deems it necessary to discuss the parts of speech—the general term and the verb—and the modes of affirmation and denial. In this treatise he develops the nature and limitations of propositions, the meaning of contraries and contradictions, and the force of affirmations and denials in possible, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... working out; but Vera, though refusing to take refuge from the piano, to which, in fact, she was perfectly inured, worried her elder as much as she durst, by inquiries after the meaning of words, or what horrid verb to look out in the dictionary; and it was a pleasing change when Paula proceeded to work the same scene out for herself without having recourse to explanations, so that Agatha was undisturbed except ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... astonishing how expressive the simple word can become in the hands of a master. Dante's verb and noun are now proverbial. As for Mr. Davidson, Gray's clear-cut lines in the Elegy can supply no more instances of perfect aptness than those which I quoted some time ago of the lark. Notice the exactness ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... whether in any department of physical science the manuals in use seventy-five years ago are so utterly inferior to those of the present day as are, for instance, the remarks of Viger, and his commentators before Hermann, on the syntax of the Greek verb, to the philosophical treatment of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... not an apple. It is a model of the apple you saw. Alphonse Poller was the brilliant scientist who devised this method of taking impressions and making models. He called it 'moulage.' The word is used either as a verb or ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew

... "got on" after a manner in our Romany talk, I was often obliged to have recourse to my friend the general to translate long sentences into Russian, especially when some sand-bar of a verb or some log of a noun impeded the current of our conversation. Finally, a formal request was made by the captain that I would, as one deep beyond all their experience in Romany matters, kindly tell them what kind of people they ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... concerts, dinner-parties in general, tea-parties without exposition of Scripture, races, and operas, cards, charades, and whatever else amuses society without perceptibly sanctifying it. All these, by Julia's account, Miss Hardie had renounced, and was now denouncing (with the young the latter verb treads on the very heels of the former). "And, you know, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... with much warlike thrashing, until I had committed the whole of the French, Latin, and English grammars to memory, and in connection with reading-lessons we were called on to recite parts of them with the rules over and over again, as if all the regular and irregular incomprehensible verb stuff was poetry. In addition to all this, father made me learn so many Bible verses every day that by the time I was eleven years of age I had about three fourths of the Old Testament and all of the New by ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir

... the Linns or Ailinus of the Greeks and Egyptians * * * which Wilkinson connects with the Coptic "ya lay-lee-ya lail." The Alleluia which Lescarbot heard the South Americans sing must have been the same wail. The Greek verb [Greek: ololuzo] and the Latin ululare, with an English howl and wail, are probably derived from this ancient ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow

... is most remarkable in the strange formation of their verbs. The most complex action is often expressed by a single verb, which serves to convey all the shades of an idea by ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... vanity of science, as Erasmus was in commending of folly. Neither shall any man or matter escape some touch of these smiling railers. But for Erasmus and Agrippa, they had another foundation than the superficial part would promise. Marry, these other pleasant fault-finders, who will correct the verb, before they understand the noun, and confute others' knowledge before they confirm their own: I would have them only remember, that scoffing cometh not of wisdom. So as the best title in true English they get with their merriments is to be called good fools: for ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... that people avoid (Whence is derived the verb 'to flee'). Where have you been by it most annoyed? In lodgings by ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll

... human habitations in this way, as the redbreast does, Mr. Masson replies that the subject of the verb "to come" is, not the skylark, but L'Allegro, the joyous student. I cannot construe the lines as Mr. Masson does, even though the consequence were to convict Milton, a city-bred youth, of not knowing a skylark from a sparrow ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... as thoroughly as she ever had a problem, or a French verb. She insisted on setting them at night, and baking them every morning during her stay, and she was finally pronounced an adept in the work. This was not all she did. She put new life in the silent old house, sung all her songs, read the newspapers aloud, made a cap for ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston

... Joe went on, "was settled—settled upon me, long ago." The verb "to settle" is capable of conveying large and vague impressions. "But after all, what's the good of this ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant

... genitive. It has prepositions as well as postpositions; sometimes the preposition is used with the noun and sometimes the postposition: for example, cad o gav, from the town; chungale mannochendar, evil men from, i.e. from evil men. The verb has no infinitive; in lieu thereof, the conjunction 'that' is placed before some person of some tense. 'I wish to go' is expressed in Gypsy by camov te jaw, literally, I wish that I go; thou wishest to go, caumes te jas, thou wishest that thou goest; caumen te jallan, ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow

... thought fit to interfere, and gravely point out that the habit of striking bears as large as a horse with a school-slate was equally dangerous to the slate (which was also the property of Tuolumne County) and to the striker; and that the verb "to swot" and the noun substantive "snoot" were likewise indefensible, and not to be tolerated. Thus admonished Jimmy Snyder, albeit unshaken in his faith in ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... to being. Knowledge without a correspondent reality is no knowledge; if we know, there must be somewhat known by us. To know is in its very essence a verb active. ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... correlations and abstract properties of the appearance of the star, we do not know the appearance itself. Now you may, for the sake of illustration, compare the different appearances of the star to the conjugation of a Greek verb, except that the number of its parts is really infinite, and not only apparently so to the despairing schoolboy. In vacuo, the parts are regular, and can be derived from the (imaginary) root according to the laws of grammar, i.e. ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell

... the Council was Nihatirontakowa—or, in the Onondaga dialect, Nihatientakona—usually rendered the "Great-Tree People,"—literally, "those of the great log." It is derived from karonta, a fallen tree or piece of timber, with the suffix kowa or kona, great, added, and the verb-forming pronoun prefixed. In the singular number it becomes Niharontakowa, which would be understood to mean "He is an Oneida." The name, it is said, was given to the nation because when Dekanawidah and Hiawatha first went to meet its chief, they crossed ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale

... inform Mrs. Elder of your charming sentiments; in the meantime, kindly excuse me from continuing such highly edifying conversation." With that she bent her head over the French grammar, and soon appeared thoroughly engrossed in the conjugation of the verb avoir, to have, while her mischievous school-mate turned away with a light shrug ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont

... authority, if only they did not contradict one another flat. We are doubling the electorate: what result will the General Election produce? Politicians who belong to the family of Mr. Despondency and his daughter, Muchafraid, reply that Monarchy will be abolished, Capital "conscripted" (delightful verb), debt repudiated, and Anarchy enthroned. Strangely dissimilar results are predicted by the Party-hacks, who, being by lifelong habit trained to applaud whatever Government does, announce with smug satisfaction that the British workman loves property, and will ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... of "the survival of the fittest." This, however, had not occurred to me till reading your letter. It is, however, a great objection to this term that it cannot be used as a substantive governing a verb; and that this is a real objection I infer from H. Spencer continually using the words Natural Selection. I formerly thought, probably in an exaggerated degree, that it was a great advantage to bring into connection natural and artificial selection; ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... a noun or a verb. A noun is a word of one person with gender and case; as, I is onelie of the first person; thou is onelie of the second; and al other nounes are onelie the third person; as, thou, Thomas, head, hand, stone, blok, except they be joined with I ...
— Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue - A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles • Alexander Hume

... love. She combines the special qualities of the women of other countries and gives unity to the mixture by her wit, that truly French product, which enlivens, sanctions, justifies, and varies all, thus relieving the monotony of a sentiment which rests on a single tense of a single verb. The Frenchwoman loves always, without abatement and without fatigue, in public or in solitude. In public she uses a tone which has meaning for one only; she speaks by silence; she looks at you with lowered eyelids. If ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... was this. Perizonius had published AElian's variae historiae, with his own notes and those of others; where taking occasion from what AElian says of Poliager,[141] he diligently examines the signification of the verb [Greek: apagchesthai], which saint Matthew[142] employs in relating the death of Judas; and insists that that word does not only mean strangling with a halter, but also sometimes excessive grief, by which a person is brought to the brink of death, and frequently even destroys ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead

... the commentary the student should underline in the text the idiomatic expressions here indicated, including those to which he is referred back in the Reviews. As irregular verb-forms are introduced with special frequency, it would be well to keep the list of irregular verbs at hand for reference. The italicized words are those that are ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

... skating parties, to wile away the rigours of the snow king's reign, were emancipated from dulness by the approach of summer. Their lessons could be carried on in the garden; and, one day, Lola, who had shut her eyes while repeating to herself an irregular verb, saw, on opening them, a jewelled humming-bird balancing itself in the air on a level with her hat, and apparently inspecting that head-dress with wonder and curiosity, after which it flashed off ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... The Italian is 'sobbillato,' which might be also translated 'inveigled' or 'instigated.' But Varchi, the contemporary of Cellini, gives this verb the force of using pressure and boring on until somebody is driven to ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... in her thin voice. The emotion which filled her voice and shone out of her eyes gave pathos to her commonplace face. Babs began to pull a flower to pieces. She had never conjugated the verb to hate, and did not know in the least what it meant; but Judy looked at ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... a Greek verb, sometimes shouting the words and sitting up in bed, and sometimes half whimpering them as Railsford gently laid him back on the pillow. There was not much fear of Railsford dropping asleep again after this. The sick lad scarcely ceased his wild talk all the night through. Now he was going over ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed

... taken a copy, by permission of the authoress—with regard, I say, to the 'liberty of transcript,' I by no means oppose an occasional copy to the benevolent few, provided it does not degenerate into such licentiousness of Verb and Noun as may tend to 'disparage my parts of speech' by the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... its legitimate use is to ask a question—is also used to affirm or deny with great emphasis. Affirmative interrogations usually have no or not in connection with the verb. Example.—"Is not God in the height of the heavens?" Job 22:12. Examples of a negative.—"Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once?" Isa. 66:8. "Can the rush grow up without mire?" ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss

... confess" the sins we are forbidden to "dissemble or cloke;" and the bead-roll of the lawyer, who huddles together "give, devise, and bequeath," lest the cunning of litigants should evade any single verb. The works of the poets yield still better instances. When Milton praises the Virtuous Young Lady of his sonnet in that the spleen of her detractors moves her only to "pity and ruth," it is not for the idle filling of the line ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh

... Science, as Erasmus was in the commending of Folly; {60} neither shall any man or matter escape some touch of these smiling railers. But for Erasmus and Agrippa, they had another foundation than the superficial part would promise. Marry, these other pleasant fault-finders, who will correct the verb before they understand the noun, and confute others' knowledge before they confirm their own; I would have them only remember, that scoffing cometh not of wisdom; so as the best title in true English they get with their merriments, is to be called ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney

... for friendship, or who can be a friend to any one whom he does not love for his own sake? And what is loving, from which verb (amo) the very name of friendship (amicitia) is derived, but wishing a certain person to enjoy the greatest possible good fortune, even if none of ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward

... "Eochaid arose," Atrigestar Eochaid. Strachan thinks it much more likely that this is "Eochaid feared him," the verb coming from atagur. It is, however, just possible that the word might be a deponent form from atregaim, "I arise." Eochaid does not elsewhere show any fear of Mider, the meaning given agrees better with the tone of the ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy

... retorted that we might also use the term "cut" in a butcher shop, but when travelling in a hill country and looking out of the train window it meant the mountain cut. They said they never heard of the word sod, except used as a noun. She replied that she never heard the word "turf" used as a verb. We continued in an amiable wrangle which finally brought out the fact which even the most obstinate of them was obliged to admit, and that is that when traced to its proper root, the Americans speak ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell

... closer view each plant suggests sea-spray itself. Thrifty housewives along the coast dry it for winter bouquets, partly for ornament and partly because there is an old wives' tradition that it keeps away moths. Statice, from the Greek verb to stop, hence an astringent, was the generic name formerly applied to the plants, with whose roots these same old women ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA}? But after it had been received and approved, then he called it comprehension, resembling those things which are taken up (prehenduntur) in the hand; from which verb also he derived this noun, though no one else had ever used this verb with reference to such matters; and he also used many new words, for he was speaking of new things. But that which was comprehended by sense he called felt (sensum,) and if ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... one long syllable, which last is elided and disappears before the "o" of orbi. Tuiti which is the same word as tuti is a passive past participle meaning saved or preserved. It is derived from tueor, which is generally used as a deponent or reflexive verb, but tueor is used by Varro and the legal writers as a ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence

... earthen cover of an earthen pot. The verb derived from it, tuntungan, has two meanings: one is "to cover something," the other is: to step on or over something." Hence ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... Many words of related meaning, both Hebrew and Greek, are translated 'garment' in our English Bible. The Greek original in the mention of the wedding garment is enduma; this does not occur in other Bible passages as the original of 'garment.' The noun is related to the Greek verb enduein, 'to put on, as a garment.' Compare Luke 24:49, 'until ye be endued with power from ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... containing his life-blood, and the material for the chest of the great mysteries—meaning also the body and the world. I think, however, that its philological root may also be possibly found in the Greek noun kissa, and the verb kissao, implying strange and excessive passionate longing. Such yearning would well become the Bacchantae, the wild children of desire and of Nature. It is longing or desire which leads to renewing life, which constitutes love, which flashes like fire and light ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... generally understood that by the word "Lord," Hegesippus intended some writing or writings, containing the teaching of Christ; in which sense alone the term combines with the other term "Law and Prophets," which denote writings; and together with them admit of the verb "teacheth" in the present tense. Then, that these writings were some or all of the books of the New Testament, is rendered probable from hence, that in the fragments of his works, which are preserved in Eusebius, and in a writer ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... bear in one of the outside cages, whose claws remind one sharply that cinnamon and cloves go together, and that clove is a tense of the verb "to cleave." But we do not want such a fellow as that to cleave to us, since it is evident that a grocer kind of brute than a cinnamon bear cannot be found in all the ursine family. "Sugar and spice, and all things nice," are ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870 • Various

... to check himself whenever he feels tempted thus to go off, lacks the very first qualifications of the critic:—lacks them, indeed, almost as much as the mere word-grinder who looks to see whether a plural substantive has a singular verb, and is satisfied if it has not, and horrified if it has. His most famous sentence "The Animosities are mortal, but the Humanities live for ever" is certainly noble. But it would have been better if the Humanities had oftener choked ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... itself is a Latin word meaning reverence for the gods; and Mass, the name given to the chief service of the Catholic religion, comes from the Latin missa, taken from the words, Ite missa est ("Go; the Mass is ended"), with which the priest finishes the Mass. Missa is only a part of the verb mittere, "to finish." ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill

... slept, ate, and meditated. Sometimes he would hover round us, if such a verb is admissible for his seriousness of gait. He would wait till we noticed him, then sigh and extend his hand. He wanted us to feel his pulse—both pulses. This ceremony always refreshed him, and he would return to his corner of the ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... series of propositions the word 'is' is really the copula; in the second, the verb of existence. As in the first series, the negative consequence followed from one being affirmed to be equivalent to the not many; so here the affirmative consequence is deduced from one being ...
— Parmenides • Plato

... read German comfortably?" asked Anderson. "What do you make of it? I've been studying it for seven years and sometimes it seems as if I hadn't got much further than the verb to hate." ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... Indo-Chinese languages as well as those of the Kol and Ho-Munda group. More important than connections between words is, as Dr. Grierson points out in his introduction to the Mon-Khmer family, the order of the words in the sentence. In both Khasi and Mon that order is subject, verb, object. Taking this fact in conjunction with the similarities of the Khasi and Mon vocabularies, we may conclude that it is proof positive of the connection between Khasi and Mon, or Talaing. In Munda, however, this order is subject, object, ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... Mishnah (from the verb shana, "to repeat" or "to learn"). The Mishnah was not the work of one man or of one age. So long was it in growing, that its birth dates from long before the destruction of the Temple. But the men most closely associated with ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams

... that's the spot which my two children fill, which my children keep green, which my children keep holy. It's them I think of, when I think of the future—when I should at least be thinking a little of my grammar and remembering that the verb "to be" takes the nominative, just as discontented husbands seem to take the initiative! That's why I can't quite find the courage to ask for freedom. I have seen enough of life to know what the smash-up of a family means to its toddlers. And I want my children ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... Mentor of our young Telemachus, for it is good to know that our town produced the founder of the latter's fortunes. Does the thought-contracted brow of the local Sage or the lustrous eye of local Beauty inquire whose fortunes? We believe that Quintin Matsys was the BLACKSMITH of Antwerp. VERB. SAP. ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... has been dwelt upon because of its direct influence upon German painting and religion. A new verb, "sternbaldisieren," was coined to parody a new movement in German art toward the medieval, religious spirit. It is this book which Heine had in mind when he ridiculed Tieck's "silly plunge into medieval naivete." Overbeck and Cornelius in Rome, with their pre-Raphaelite, old-German ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... instance of this peculiar form in the present version. The miners in the Marienberg invariably said 'for to' wherever the preposition 'to' occurred before a verb. ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell



Words linked to "Verb" :   verb phrase, transitive, intransitive, intransitive verb, object of the verb, major form class, infinitive, doubly transitive verb form, frequentative, participle, copula, verbify, reflexive verb, phrasal verb, linking verb, modal verb, doubly transitive verb, intransitive verb form, transitive verb, copulative, participial, content word, verbal, open-class word, transitive verb form, conjugation, auxiliary verb, modal auxiliary verb



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