فعل- “verb”

A verb refers to an action or a state, occurring in the past, present, or future.

An alternative definition is that a verb is a word that conveys an independent meaning, bound by a particular time or tense.

An example of an action would be: ضرب (“he hit”), يضرب (“he is hitting/will hit”), اضرب (hit!). And a state: حسن (he was good/became good), يحسن (he is/will be good), احسن (be good!).

Some of the distinguishing characteristics of a verb include:

1. It can only be a predicate (مسند, “that which is assigned to something else”);
2. It can accept the article قد (specifically, the ماضي and مضارع verbs);
3. It can accept نون التوكيد (specifically, the مضارع and أمر verbs);
4. It can indicate a command by its very form (this characteristic, along with characteristic 3, define an أمر; in other words, an أمر verb is defined as that which can take a نون التوكيد and refers to a command directly).

Verbs are primarily categorized according to:

1. Their tense, into the ماضي (perfect), مضارع (imperfect), and the أمر (command) verbs;
2. Their being a مجرد (base form) or a مزيد فيه (increased form);
3. Their base form being three-lettered (like ضرب “he hit”) or four-lettered (دحرج “he rolled”).