Do you know what a gerund is? This article will provide you with all of the information you need on gerunds, including the definition, usage, example sentences, and more!
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Kevin
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November 22, 2021
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Common Questions
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What is a gerund?
According to Your Dictionary, a gerund is a verb that ends in -ing but functions as nouns. In English grammar, a gerund phrase is a group of words consisting of a gerund and the modifier. Gerund can function as a subject of the sentence, direct object of the verb, subject complement, predicate noun, predicate nominatives, or object of preposition. The subject is the thing or person that carries out the action of the verb and has to be in singular agreement or plural agreement with the forms of the verb. The word gerund is two syllables – ger-und, and the pronunciation of gerund is ˈdʒɛrənd. A gerund phrase acts as a noun for the entire phrase, but the parts of a gerund phrase are the verb root and modifiers.
Many different languages also contain words that mean gerund. You may notice that some of these translations of gerund look and sound similar to one another. These are called cognates, which are words and phrases in different languages that likely have the same root or language of origin, causing them to sound the same. The below list of translations of gerund is provided by Word Sense.
- French: gérondif (masc.)
- Danish: gerundium (neut.)
- Ido: gerundio
- Thai: อาการนาม
- Korean: 동명사
- Czech: gerundium (neut.)
- Norwegian: gerundium (neut.)
- Japanese: 動名詞 (どうめいし, dōmeishi)
- Portuguese: gerúndio (masc.)
- German: Gerundium (neut.), Vertretungswort
- Russian: геру́ндий (masc.)
- Galician: xerundio (masc.)
- Hindi: क्रियावाचक संज्ञा (kriyavachak sangya)
- Italian: gerundio (masc.)
- Tagalog: pandiwang makangalan, pangngalang-diwa
- Cebuano: punglihongan
- Swedish: gerundium (neut.)
- Catalan: gerundi (masc.)
- Greek: γερούνδιο (neut.)
- Spanish: gerundio (masc.)
- Arabic: صِيغَة فِعْل, مَصْدَر (masc.)
- Dutch: gerundium (neut.)
- Norman: nom vèrbal (masc.)
- Novial: gerunde
- Mandarin: 動名詞, 动名词 (dòng-míngcí)
- Turkish: ulaç
- Finnish: gerundi
What are gerund phrase examples?
A gerund phrase can be used in many different contexts in the English language. Trying to use a word or literary technique in a sentence is one of the best ways to memorize what it is, but you can also try making flashcards or quizzes that test your knowledge. Try using this term of the day in a sentence today! Below are a couple of examples of gerund phrases from Your Dictionary that can help get you started incorporating this tool into your everyday use. Try to use the term gerund today or notice when someone else is using a gerund phrase.
- Reading romance novels is relaxing.
- Swimming with friends helps me unwind.
- Writing emails is an exchange of ideas.
- Smoking cigarettes is not permitted in the restaurant.
- Apologizing to me isn’t enough this time.
- I enjoy shopping with friends.
- My sister avoids cooking large dinners.
- The team practiced kicking into the goal.
- We don’t mind paying for the car.
- She considered quitting her job.
- I never gave reading for fun enough of a chance.
- The ballerina taught us dancing to music.
- My mother has devoted her life to teaching children.
- She made running in the morning her routine.
- Mrs. Taylor gave painting landscapes a try.
- My love for reading novels was immediate.
- After studying for six hours, we took a break.
- Kira always talks about running a marathon.
- We got in trouble for chatting during the test.
- Ian has received ten job offers since graduating college.
- Dawn’s favorite activity is drawing sketches of her family.
- Her occupation is writing newspaper articles.
- The dog’s worst habit is barking at the door.
- My least favorite sport is jogging on the track because of my opponent and hunger pains.
- His favorite hobby was biking in the mountains.
- He had the bad habit of smoking every night.
- She has the serious ambition of wanting to become a chef.
- Staying up until midnight to read was Pablo’s favorite hobby.
- Janice’s evening plans were going to see Kobe’s teammate play piano; she already had her ticket.
- We planned on stopping at the red light but we were rear ended into the intersection.
What are other grammar terms?
There are many different literary and grammatical techniques and devices that you might see when you are reading prose or poetry. It is important to recognize these terms because they are always used for some purpose. Knowing these devices can help readers understand the author’s deeper meaning and why they are using such a device. Take a look at the below list of grammatical devices from OED and see how many you know! Then try researching ones that are unfamiliar to you.
- phrase (phr.)
- phrasal verb
- vocative
- dual
- count noun
- prepositional phrase
- apposition
- subordinate clause
- optative
- similative
- pleonasm | pleonastic
- intensifier
- objective
- definite article
- auxiliary verb | auxiliary
- person
- article
- verbal noun
- postmodify | postmodifier
- to-infinitive
- comparative
- tense
- conjunction (conj.)
- present participle
- special use
- modal verb | modal auxiliary verb | modal auxiliary
- stem
- demonstrative
- agent noun
- base form
- passive
- possessive pronoun
- cataphoric
- combination
- element
- absolute (absol.)
- complement
- direct object
- construed (const., constr.)
- adverbial | adverbially
- subjective
- non-finite
- neuter
- nominal relative | nominal relative clause
- protasis
- present tense
- cognate object
- prepositional object
- case
- past tense
- perfect
- bare infinitive
- participle | past participle | present participle
- dative
- preposition (prep.)
- collocation | collocate
- pronoun (pron.)
- main verb
- personal pronoun
- non-referential
- zero
- interjection
- quasi-
- morpheme
- collective noun
- feminine
- inflection | inflected | inflectional
- indirect question
- declarative
- causative
- possessive adjective
- progressive
- appositive
- construction
- mass noun
- conditional
- indefinite
- possessive
- suffix
- indicative
- parenthetical | parenthetically
- ellipsis | elliptical
- pro-form
- apodosis and protasis
- verb (v.)
- number
- reflexive
- double object
- direct question
- noun phrase
- instrumental
- abstract
- indirect passive
- intransitive
- object | direct object | indirect object
- impersonal (impers.)
- clause
- relative
- superlative
- participial adjective
- finite
- compound | compounding
- adverb (adv.)
- gerund
- anaphoric
- second person
- combining form (comb. form)
- mood
- part of speech
- subject
- premodify | premodifier
- sentence adverb |sentence adverbial
- active
- first person
- past participle
- interrogative
- common noun
- indirect speech
- infinitive
- direct speech
- copular verb | copula
- periphrasis | periphrastic
- antecedent
- masculine
- head
- nominative
- noun (n.)
- suffix
- positive
- adjective
- locative
- complementary
- anticipatory
- transitive
- accusative
- attributive
- unmarked genitive
- singular
- modify | modifier
- third-person
- indirect object
- predicative
- genitive
- prepositional passive
- that-clause
- subjunctive
- main clause
- determiner
- simple
- parasynthetic
- plural
- proper noun | proper name
- passive infinitive
- agree | agreement
- filler
- gender
- concrete
- imperative (imper.)
- prefix
Overall, a gerund phrase is an ing word/ing form of a verb and modifiers that function as a noun. Many common verbs can be used as a gerund.
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