GERUND • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Gerund

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noun

Gerund n. (Lat. Gram.)

A kind of verbal noun, having only the four oblique cases of the singular number, and governing cases like a participle.

In Modern English, the -ing form of a verb, when functioning as a noun; as, running is good for the heart.

(AS. Gram.) A verbal noun ending in -e, preceded by to and usually denoting purpose or end; called also the dative infinitive; as, "Ic haebbe mete tô etanne" (I have meat to eat.).

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Etymology of 'Gerund'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Gerund" Quotes from Famous Books

... schoolmaster is not equal to much at present,—while the unexpress, for good or for evil, is so busy with a poor little fellow! Other departments of schooling had been infinitely more productive, for our young friend, than the gerund-grinding one. A voracious reader I believe he all along was,—had "read the whole Edinburgh Review" in these boyish years, and out of the circulating libraries one knows not what cartloads; wading like Ulysses towards his palace "through infinite dung." A voracious ...

— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... museums of plants or minerals, more carefully classified and labeled than the productions of any of the great kingdoms of nature. Every form of declension and conjugation, every genitive and every so-called infinitive and gerund, is the result of a long succession of efforts, and of intelligent efforts. There is nothing accidental, nothing irregular, nothing without a purpose and meaning in any part of Greek or Latin grammar. No one who has once discovered this hidden life of language, no one ...

— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller