A verbal noun is a noun formed from or otherwise corresponding to a verb. Different languages have different types of verbal noun and different ways of forming and using them. An example of a verbal noun in English is the word singing in the sentence "I think singing is fun" (this is a noun formed from the verb sing).
Verbal nouns may be non-finite verb forms such as infinitives or gerunds in English (or Latin) usage. They may also be "pure" verbal nouns, formed from verbs, but behaving grammatically entirely like nouns rather than verbs (not taking direct objects, for example).
Read more about Verbal Noun: Types of Verbal Noun, Specification of The Agent, Examples of Verbal Noun Use in Other Languages
Famous quotes containing the words verbal and/or noun:
“It is clear that all verbal structures with meaning are verbal imitations of that elusive psychological and physiological process known as thought, a process stumbling through emotional entanglements, sudden irrational convictions, involuntary gleams of insight, rationalized prejudices, and blocks of panic and inertia, finally to reach a completely incommunicable intuition.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)
“It will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)