Verbification, or
verbing, is the creation of a verb from a noun, adjective or other word.
In English In English, verbification typically involves simple conversion of a non-verb to a verb. The verbs
to verbify and
to verb, the first by
derivation with an
affix and the second by
zero derivation, are themselves products of verbification (see
autological word), and the term
to verb is often used more specifically, to refer only to verbification that does not involve a change in
form. (Verbing in that specific sense is therefore a kind of
anthimeria.) Many adjectives have become verbs, including adjectives based on Latin passive participles, such as "separate". Usually, at least now, there is a pronunciation difference between the adjective and the verb. (Later this was extended to forming verbs from Latin passive participles even if they were not used as adjectives.) Examples of verbification in the English language number in the thousands, including some of the most common words such as
mail and
e-mail,
strike,
salt,
pepper,
switch,
bed,
sleep,
ship,
train,
stop,
drink,
cup,
lure,
mutter,
dress,
dizzy,
divorce,
fool,
merge, to be found throughout the
dictionary. Thus, verbification is by no means confined to
slang and has furnished English with countless new expressions: "access", as in "access the file", which was previously only a noun, as in "gain access to the file". Similar mainstream examples include "host", as in "host a party", and "chair", as in "chair the meeting". Other formations, such as "gift", are less widespread but still mainstream. Verbification is a common source of
neologisms which can meet opposition from
prescriptivist authorities (the verb sense of
impact is a well-known example). However, many such words have become accepted parts of the language after extended use. In many cases, the verbs were distinct from their noun counterparts in
Old English, and regular sound change has made them the same form: these can be
reanalysed as conversion.
In constructed languages In
Toki Pona, any content word may function as a noun, verb or adjective depending on syntax; for example,
moku may mean
food,
to eat, or
edible. ==Noun conversion in English==