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What is a Verb? || Oregon State Guide to Grammar | College of Liberal Arts | Oregon State University Skip to main content About Dean's Office CLA Faculty and Staff Directory Emeritus Directory Faculty & Staff Resources PRAx Research Support Marketing & Communications Events Featured Stories CLA News CLA Awards Future Students Undergraduate Students Transfer Students Graduate Students Current Students Academic Advising Career Services Internships Scholarships Financial Aid Honors Student Profiles Student Resources Graduation Celebrations 2026 Undergrad Humanities Conference Academics Degrees and Programs Undergraduate Programs & Degrees Graduate Programs & Degrees Certificate and Pre-Professional Programs Microcredential Programs Centers and Initiatives School of Communication School of History, Philosophy and Religion School of Language, Culture and Society School of Psychological Science School of Public Policy School of Visual, Performing and Design Arts School of Writing, Literature and Film Community CLA Events Alumni Give to CLA Undergraduate Programs BA in English BA in Creative Writing Undergraduate Film Studies About Film Studies Film Faculty Minor in Film Studies Film Studies at Work Minors and Certificates Minor in English Minor in Writing Minor in Film Studies Minor in Applied Journalism Scientific, Technical, and Professional Communication Certificate Academic Advising Student Resources Scholarships Future Students Graduate Programs MA in English MFA in Creative Writing Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies (MAIS) Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing Courses Graduate Course Descriptions WR I & WR II WR II Course "Menu" Undergraduate Course Descriptions Faculty & Staff Promoting Your Research Faculty & Staff Directory Emeritus Directory Faculty by Fields of Focus Applied Journalism Faculty Creative Writing Faculty Film Faculty Literature Faculty Rhetoric & Writing Faculty Media SWLF Media Channel Student Work Events Conference for Antiracist Teaching, Language and Assessment View All Events The Stone Award Alumni & Friends Continuing Education Alumni Notes Donor Information Featured Alumni Postcard Project News OSU - University of Warsaw Faculty Exchange Program Twitter News Feed 2023 Spring Newsletter 2024 Spring Newsletter Commitment to DEI Previous English Letters 2022 Spring Newsletter 2025 Newsletter What is a Verb? || Oregon State Guide to Grammar View the full series: The Oregon State Guide to Grammar What is a Verb? - Transcript Written and Performed by J.T. Bushnell , Oregon State University Senior Instructor of English Most people have learned that verbs are action words. That’s a category based on meaning, and usually it’s pretty helpful, but it’s not the only way to identify a verb – or even the best. There are a ton of verbs that don’t have much action in them, like “have,” or “wait,” or “remain,” or “be.” They’re still verbs. Conversely, there are a ton of other words that seem to have a lot of action in them, like, well, “action,” or “explosive,” or “trapeze performance.” They aren’t verbs. Even the word “verb” isn’t a verb. As I mentioned in the video on nouns , we can also identify word classes by how they function – that is, the way they get modified or used in a sentence. Verbs, for example, are the only part of our language that can show tense. Image We can put them in past tense, usually by adding -ed : wait/waited. Or in present tense, often by adding -s : wait/waits. Or even in future tense by adding an auxiliary (or helper verb): will wait. You won’t find a lot of action in those examples, but because they all show tense, we know we’re working with a verb. And so a more useful definition of a verb might be any word that can show tense. This is true even for irregular verbs – the ones that show tense through other spelling changes. Have becomes “had,” not “haved.” Go becomes “went,” not “goed.” They’re still showing tense. The fun thing about verbs is that it’s an open word class, meaning new verbs are added to our language all the time. Not that many years ago, a word like “Google” or “text” didn’t show tense. Those were nouns, and they still are. Google, the noun, is a website or web service or, originally, a number, though it was spelled differently (“googol”). Text, the noun, is writing as it exists on a page or screen. But now we use those words as verbs to describe actions, and we see it in the way we can add tense to them: I googled the definition of a verb and texted the answer to a friend. In other words, we verbed those nouns, and I just did it again with the word “verb.” Image We can create some pretty vivid and provocative terms this way – I trapezed across the playground, I actioned the scene once the cameras were rolling. When we do this, those nouns do indeed become verbs, which is why the functional definition is so much more useful and accurate than the one based in meaning. Our language shifts all the time, becoming richer and more versatile, adding new meanings and leaping boundaries. But we can always find the boundaries of a verb by determining whether a word can show tense. View the Full Series: The Oregon State Guide to Grammar Guide to English Literary Terms BA in English BA in Creative Writing Apply to OSU