In Latin grammar, a verb of fearing is one that pertains to fear or concern (often timeo, terreor, metuo, and vereor). This set of verbs is grammatically notable because it inverts the sense of a following purposive clause, at least relative to the intuition of speakers of many non-Latin languages.
A verb of fearing followed by a "ne" purposive clause means that the subject fears that the event will happen (but wishes that it would not). A verb of fearing followed by an "ut" purposive clause means that the subject fears that the event will not happen (but wishes that it would).
Famous quotes containing the words verb and/or fearing:
“The word is the Verb, and the Verb is God.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“And wow he died as wow he lived,
going whop to the office and blooie home to sleep and
biff got married and bam had children and oof got fired,
zowie did he live and zowie did he die,”
—Kenneth Fearing (1902–1961)