action verb

noun

grammar

: a verb that expresses action

"Drive" in "We often drive past their house" and "think" in "Let's think about the problem" are both action verbs.

Examples of action verb in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Each line of a headline should be able to stand alone as a single thought, meaning any line other than the final one should generally end with a noun or an action verb. —

Sarah Bahr, New York Times, 15 Sep. 2023 And Christiana Figueres, the former U.N. climate secretary who helped forge the 2015 Paris agreement and then started a non-profit called Climate Optimism, sees hope not as a noun but an action verb. —

Seth Borenstein, ajc, 19 Nov. 2022

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'action verb.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.