In linguistics, “gerund” is a term used to refer to various non-finite verb forms in various languages:
- As applied to English, it refers to what might be called a verb's action noun, which is one of the uses of the -ing form. This is also the term's use as applied to Latin; see Latin conjugation.
- As applied to Spanish and Portuguese, it refers to an adverbial participle (a verbal adverb), called in Spanish the gerundio and in Portuguese the gerúndio.
- As applied to French, it refers either to the adverbial participle — also called the gerundive — or to the present adjectival participle.
- As applied to Hebrew, it refers either to the verb's action noun, or to the part of the infinitive that follows the infinitival prefix (also called the infinitival construct).
- As applied to Frisian, it refers to one of two verb forms frequently referred to as infinitives, this one ending in -n. It shows up in nominalizations and is selected by perception verbs.
- As applied to Japanese, it designates verb and adjective forms ending in -te or -de, the continuative stem of an older perfective auxiliary verb.
- As applied to other languages, it may refer to almost any non-finite verb form; however, it most often refers to an action noun, by analogy with its use as applied to English or Latin.
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