What is "infinitive"

Infinitive \In*fin"i*tive\, n. (Gram.) An infinitive form of the verb; a verb in the infinitive mood; the infinitive mood.

Infinitive \In*fin"i*tive\, n. [L. infinitivus: cf. F. infinitif. See Infinite.] Unlimited; not bounded or restricted; undefined. Infinitive mood (Gram.), that form of the verb which merely names the action, and performs the office of a verbal noun. Some grammarians make two forms in English:

1. The simple form, as, speak, go, hear, before which to is commonly placed, as, to speak; to go; to hear.

2. The form of the imperfect participle, called the infinitive in -ing; as, going is as easy as standing.

   Note: With the auxiliary verbs may, can, must, might, could, would, and should, the simple infinitive is expressed without to; as, you may speak; they must hear, etc. The infinitive usually omits to with the verbs let, dare, do, bid, make, see, hear, need, etc.; as, let me go; you dare not tell; make him work; hear him talk, etc.

   Note: In Anglo-Saxon, the simple infinitive was not preceded by to (the sign of modern simple infinitive), but it had a dative form (sometimes called the gerundial infinitive) which was preceded by to, and was chiefly employed in expressing purpose. See Gerund, 2.

   Note: The gerundial ending (-anne) not only took the same form as the simple infinitive (-an), but it was confounded with the present participle in -ende, or -inde (later -inge).

Infinitive \In*fin"i*tive\, adv. (Gram.) In the manner of an infinitive mood.

"simple, uninflected form of a verb," 1510s (mid-15c. as an adjective), from Late Latin infinitivus "unlimited, indefinite," from Latin infinitus (see infinite). "Indefinite" because not having definite person or number.

1. 1 (context grammar English) Formed with the infinitive. 2 Unlimited; not bounded or restricted; undefined. n. 1 (context grammar English) A non-finite verb form considered neutral with respect to inflection; depending on language variously found used with auxiliary verbs, in subordinate clauses, or acting as a gerund, and often as the dictionary form. 2 (context grammar English) A verbal noun formed from the infinitive of a ver

1. adj. formed with the infinitive; "an infinitive phrase"

2. not having inflections to indicate tense

3. n. the uninflected form of the verb

Infinitive is a grammatical term referring to certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is derived from Late Latin [modus] infinitivus, a derivative of infinitus meaning "unlimited".

In traditional descriptions of English, the infinitive is the basic dictionary form of a verb when used non-finitely, with or without the particle to. Thus to go is an infinitive, as is go in a sentence like "I must go there" (but not in "I go there", where it is a finite verb). The form without to is called the bare infinitive, and the form with to is called the full infinitive or to-infinitive.

In many other languages the infinitive is a single word, often with a characteristic inflective ending, like morir ("(to) die") in Spanish, manger ("(to) eat") in French, portare ("(to) carry") in Latin, lieben ("(to) love") in German, etc. However some languages have no forms which can be considered to be infinitives. Many Native American languages and some languages in Africa and Australia do not have direct equivalents to infinitives or verbal nouns; in their place they use finite verb forms in ordinary clauses or various special constructions.

Being a verb, an infinitive may take objects and other complements and modifiers to form a verb phrase (called an infinitive phrase). Like other non-finite verb forms (like participles, converbs, gerunds and gerundives) infinitives do not generally have an expressed subject; thus an infinitive verb phrase also constitutes a complete non-finite clause, called an infinitive (infinitival) clause. Such phrases or clauses may play a variety of roles within sentences, often being nouns (for example being the subject of a sentence or being a complement of another verb), and sometimes being adverbs or other types of modifier. Many verb forms known as infinitives differ from gerunds (verbal nouns) in that they do not inflect for case or occur in adpositional phrases. Instead, infinitives often originate in earlier inflectional forms of verbal nouns. Unlike finite verbs, infinitives are not usually inflected for tense, person, etc. either, although some degree of inflection sometimes occurs; for example Latin has distinct active and passive infinitives.