what is a verb? Definition, Types & Examples

Every complete sentence needs something to tell us what is happening, what someone is doing, or what state something is in. That job usually belongs to the verb, one of the fundamental parts of speech in English grammar.

A verb is a word that expresses an action, occurrence, or state of being. Words such as run, think, happen, is, and seem can function as verbs. Verbs also help communicate tense, showing whether something happened in the past, happens in the present, or will happen in the future.

Consider these examples:

• Maria runs every morning.
• I remember his name.
• The accident happened yesterday.
• They are tired.
• The soup smells delicious.

The bold words are verbs, but they do not all perform exactly the same job. Some describe actions, while others describe states or connect a subject with information about it.

What Is a Verb in English Grammar?

A verb is a part of speech that functions as a central element of a clause or sentence. It can tell us what a subject does, what happens to the subject, or what condition or state the subject is in.

For example:

The dog barked.

Here, barked tells us what the dog did.

Now compare:

The dog is hungry.

There is no physical action in this sentence. Nevertheless, is is a verb because it expresses the dog’s state.

This is why the common definition “a verb is an action word” is useful for beginners but incomplete. Verbs can represent physical actions, mental actions, states, occurrences, and relationships.

Why are verbs important?

A verb provides the grammatical core of a sentence. Standard English sentences and independent clauses normally require a verb, although commands can have an implied subject.

For example:

Stop!

Stop is the verb. The subject you is understood rather than explicitly stated: (You) stop! Scribbr similarly notes that an imperative can consist of a single verb with an implied you.

Verbs also carry information about time, aspect, mood, voice, and agreement, making them far more than simple action words.

Quick takeaway: If you are trying to identify the verb, ask what is happening, what the subject does, or what state the subject is in. Then check how the word behaves grammatically.

Types of Verbs and Their Examples

English verbs can be classified in several ways. These categories sometimes overlap: one verb can belong to different groups depending on how it is being used.

For instance, run is usually an action or dynamic verb, but it may be transitive in one context and intransitive in another.

Action or dynamic verbs

An action verb, also called a dynamic verb, describes something that a person, animal, object, or other subject does. The action can be physical or mental.

Physical actions include:

• walk
• jump
• eat
• write
• swim
• open

Examples:

Liam opened the door.
The children played outside.
She wrote a letter.

Mental actions can also be expressed by verbs:

I considered the proposal.
She imagined a different ending.

Dynamic verbs commonly describe temporary actions, processes, or events.

Stative verbs

A stative verb describes a state, condition, possession, perception, feeling, or mental situation rather than a deliberate physical activity.

Common examples include:

• know
• believe
• understand
• belong
• love
• own
• prefer

For example:

Daniel knows the answer.
This bicycle belongs to me.
I prefer coffee.

Many stative verbs are not normally used in continuous forms when expressing their stative meanings. For example, standard usage generally favors I believe you rather than I am believing you.

Context matters, however. Some verbs can have both stative and dynamic meanings:

I have a car.
I am having lunch.

In the first sentence, have expresses possession. In the second, it describes an activity.

What Is a Linking Verb?

A linking verb connects the subject with a word or phrase that identifies or describes it. Rather than showing an action performed on an object, it creates a link between the subject and a subject complement.

The most common linking verb is be, with forms such as:

• am
• is
• are
• was
• were
• be
• been
• being

For example:

Sofia is a doctor.
The children are excited.

Other verbs can function as linking verbs, including:

• seem
• become
• appear
• feel
• look
• smell
• sound
• taste

Examples:

The cake smells wonderful.
Your idea sounds reasonable.
The sky became dark.

Some of these words can also function as action verbs.

Compare:

She looked tired.
She looked through the window.

In the first sentence, looked links she with tired. In the second, looked describes an action.

What Is a Helping Verb?

A helping verb, or auxiliary verb, works with a main verb to build a verb phrase and express grammatical information such as tense, aspect, voice, questions, or negation.

Three central auxiliary verbs in English are:

• be
• have
• do

Consider:

She is studying tonight.
We have finished the project.
Do you know him?

The main verbs are studying, finished, and know. The auxiliary verbs help construct the complete verb phrases.

A single sentence can contain several verbs working together:

They will have completed the work by Friday.

Here, will and have help the main verb completed.

Modal verbs

Modal verbs are auxiliary verbs that express meanings such as possibility, ability, permission, necessity, obligation, or prediction.

Common modals include:

• can
• could
• may
• might
• must
• shall
• should
• will
• would

Examples:

She can swim.
It might rain tonight.
You should study before the test.
We will arrive tomorrow.

Notice that the modal combines with the base form of another verb.

Transitive and Intransitive Verbs

Another useful way to classify verbs is by whether they take an object.

Transitive verbs

A transitive verb takes a direct object—the person or thing receiving the action.

For example:

Noah kicked the ball.

Ask:

Noah kicked what?

The answer is the ball, so kicked is transitive in this sentence.

More examples:

Sarah read the book.
He opened the window.
We watched the movie.

Scribbr defines a transitive verb as one that acts on someone or something and therefore takes a direct object.

Intransitive verbs

An intransitive verb does not require a direct object.

For example:

The baby cried.

You do not need to add an object for the sentence to make sense.

Other examples:

Everyone laughed.
The sun rose.
We arrived late.

An intransitive verb can still be followed by an adverb or adverbial phrase:

The baby cried loudly.

Loudly tells us how the baby cried; it is not a direct object.

Can the same verb be transitive and intransitive?

Yes. Classification often depends on how the verb is used.

Compare:

She runs every morning.

There is no direct object.

Now:

She runs a restaurant.

Here, a restaurant is the object of runs.

That is why looking at the entire sentence is more reliable than memorizing a verb as permanently transitive or intransitive.

Ditransitive verbs

Some verbs can take two objects: an indirect object and a direct object. These are often called ditransitive verbs.

For example:

Emma gave me a book.

Me is the indirect object, while a book is the direct object.

Another example:

The teacher taught us grammar.

Regular and Irregular Verbs

English verbs can also be classified according to how they form the simple past and past participle.

Regular verbs

A regular verb generally forms its simple past and past participle by adding -ed or -d.

For example:

We walked home yesterday.
We have walked this route before.

Irregular verbs

Irregular verbs do not follow the standard -ed pattern. Their forms have to be learned individually.

For example:

She wrote the email yesterday.
She has written three emails today.

Oregon State University’s grammar guide points out that irregular forms still show tense even when they do not use the standard -ed ending—for example, go becomes went.

Verb Forms and Conjugation

Conjugation is the process by which a verb changes form according to grammatical features such as tense and subject. English verbs have several forms that are used to construct different tenses and verb phrases.

Take the verb write:

These forms allow us to create sentences such as:

I write every day.
She writes every day.
They wrote yesterday.
He has written the report.
We are writing now.

What are participles?

A present participle typically ends in -ing:

• walking
• reading
• sleeping
• writing

Present participles help form continuous or progressive constructions:

She is reading.

A past participle is used in perfect constructions and passive voice. Regular past participles often end in -ed, but irregular ones may have very different forms.

Examples:

They have finished.
She has eaten.
The window was broken.

Participles can also function adjectivally:

the broken window
running water

What Is a Verb Tense?

Verb tense locates an action, event, or state in time.

English is commonly taught through three broad time categories:

• Past — something happened before now.
• Present — something happens or is true now.
• Future — something will happen later.

For example:

I walked home.
I walk home.
I will walk home.

English verb systems also use aspect to describe how an event relates to time. Common teaching frameworks combine simple, progressive, perfect, and perfect progressive forms with past, present, and future time references.

Compare:

These sentences all involve work, but each presents the situation differently.

Subject-Verb Agreement

A verb may change according to its subject. The relationship between the grammatical number or person of a subject and its verb is called subject-verb agreement.

Compare:

She works here.
They work here.

With many present-tense English verbs, the third-person singular form takes -s.

The verb be shows even more variation:

I am ready.
He is ready.
They are ready.

Subject-verb agreement is one reason simply spotting an “action word” is not always enough. Looking at how a word changes in relation to the subject can help identify its grammatical function.

Common subject-verb agreement mistakes

A frequent error is:

She walk to school.

Standard agreement requires:

She walks to school.

Another is:

They is ready.

It should be:

They are ready.

When checking agreement, first identify the actual subject rather than simply choosing the noun closest to the verb.

Phrasal Verbs

A phrasal verb combines a verb with one or more particles, often an adverb or preposition-like word, to create a meaning that may differ from the original verb.

Examples include:

• give up
• find out
• turn down
• look after
• pick up
• run into

For example:

Don’t give up.

Here, give up means to stop trying rather than literally to give something upward.

Consider:

I ran into an old friend.

Ran into means encountered unexpectedly in this context.

Phrasal verbs are especially common in everyday English, so learning them as meaningful units can be more useful than trying to interpret every individual word separately.

Finite and Non-Finite Verbs

Another distinction concerns whether a verb is finite or non-finite.

A finite verb is marked for tense and can function as the central verb of an independent clause.

For example:

Mia works here.

Works is finite.

A non-finite verb does not function independently as a tense-marked main verb in the same way. Non-finite forms include infinitives and participles.

For example:

Mia wants to work here.

Wants is the finite verb. To work is an infinitive.

Consider:

Running every morning improves his fitness.

Running is derived from the verb run but is functioning here as the head of a gerund-participial clause.

This distinction helps explain why simply finding a word derived from a verb does not automatically tell you its precise function in a sentence.

Active and Passive Voice

Verbs also help distinguish active voice from passive voice.

In active voice, the subject typically performs the action:

Lucas broke the chair.

In passive voice, the subject receives or undergoes the action:

The chair was broken by Lucas.

Passive constructions typically combine a form of be with a past participle.

Active voice often emphasizes the doer:

The scientist conducted the experiment.

Passive voice can emphasize the action, process, or affected entity:

The experiment was conducted carefully.

Neither construction is automatically wrong. The appropriate choice depends on what information the writer wants to emphasize.

How to Identify a Verb in a Sentence

Finding verbs becomes easier when you combine meaning with grammatical clues.

1. Find the subject

First ask who or what the sentence is about.

The students completed their homework.

The subject is students.

2. Ask what the subject does or what is true about it

What did the students do?

They completed something.

So completed is the verb.

But don’t rely exclusively on physical action:

The students are tired.

Are is still a verb.

3. Look for tense

Verbs are strongly associated with tense. Oregon State’s grammar guide suggests this as a particularly useful functional way to recognize verbs.

For example:

walk → walked
wait → waited
go → went

If a word can take or participate in tense marking, that is strong evidence of verbal behavior.

4. Look for helping verbs

A complete verb phrase may contain multiple words.

She has been studying all afternoon.

The verb phrase is has been studying, not merely studying.

Similarly:

They will have finished by noon.

Do not overlook will and have when analyzing the verb phrase.

5. Check the word’s job in that particular sentence

The same spelling can represent different parts of speech.

Consider dance:

We watched the dance.

Here, dance is a noun.

They dance every Friday.

Here, dance is a verb.

English is flexible in this way. Oregon State notes that words such as text and Google have developed common verbal uses alongside their noun uses, illustrating how words can move between grammatical categories.

Quick takeaway: Don’t identify a verb solely by what a word means. Check what job the word performs in its sentence.

Verb vs. Noun vs. Adjective vs. Adverb

Understanding verbs becomes easier when you compare them with other major parts of speech.

Notice how each word contributes something different:

The excited children ran quickly.

Children is a noun, excited is an adjective, ran is a verb, and quickly is an adverb.

Recognizing these relationships is often more useful than memorizing isolated definitions.

Common Verb Mistakes

Once you understand what is a verb, the next challenge is choosing and forming verbs correctly.

Using the wrong irregular form

Incorrect:

She has went home.

Correct:

She has gone home.

Went is the simple past of go, while gone is its past participle.

Forgetting subject-verb agreement

Incorrect:

He play football.

Correct:

He plays football.

Leaving out an auxiliary verb

Incorrect:

She going home.

Correct:

She is going home.

The present participle going needs the auxiliary is in this construction.

Confusing a participle with a complete verb phrase

Consider:

The boy running down the street waved.

Running comes from a verb, but running down the street modifies boy. The finite verb of the main clause is waved.

Assuming every verb describes an action

This causes learners to miss sentences such as:

She is intelligent.
I know the answer.
The flowers smell wonderful.

Is, know, and smell are all functioning as verbs even though none necessarily describes a visible physical action.

Verb Examples in Sentences

Seeing verbs in context is one of the quickest ways to understand them.

One verb can fit more than one description. Opened, for example, is an action verb, a regular verb, a finite verb, and—in He opened the box—a transitive verb.

That overlap is normal. Verb categories describe different grammatical characteristics rather than creating mutually exclusive boxes.

What Is the Difference Between a Verb and a Verb Phrase?

A verb can be a single word:

She sings.

A verb phrase can contain a main verb together with one or more auxiliaries:

She is singing.
She has been singing.
She might have been singing.

The main lexical meaning comes primarily from singing, while the auxiliary and modal verbs contribute information about time, aspect, possibility, and grammatical structure.

Recognizing the entire phrase prevents a common mistake: identifying only the final word and ignoring the helping verbs that form part of the construction.

What Is the Easiest Way to Remember a Verb?

Start with three ideas:

A verb tells you what someone or something does, what happens, or what state something is in.

Then remember that verbs can change or combine with other verbs to communicate grammatical information:

walk → walks → walked
write → wrote → written
work → is working → has worked → will work

The traditional “action word” rule is a useful starting point, but it should not be the stopping point. Definitions from major grammar resources consistently include states as well as actions, and some also explicitly include occurrences.

Final Takeaway: what is a verb?

So, what is a verb? A verb is a word that expresses an action, occurrence, or state and plays a central role in building clauses and sentences. It may describe something visible, such as run, something mental, such as think, or a state or relationship, such as be, seem, or belong.

Verbs can be action or stative, linking or auxiliary, transitive or intransitive, regular or irregular, finite or non-finite, and they can combine into phrasal and multi-word verb constructions. They also help communicate tense, aspect, mood, voice, and subject-verb agreement.

When identifying a verb, don’t rely only on the question “What action is happening?” Look at the word’s function in the sentence, its relationship with the subject, and whether it carries or helps express tense. That approach works even when the verb describes no visible action at all.