The fox jumped over the fence.
A verb is usually the action word in the sentence. It tells what the subject does. In the sentence above, the word jumped is the verb. It tells us what the subject (fox) did.
Some verbs are stronger than others. They can paint clearer pictures in one's mind. When you use these verbs in writing, there is a better chance that your reader can see in their heads the picture that you are trying to put together in your post. Consider the difference between the two sentences below.
The child went to his mom.
The child ran to his mom.
Ran is a stronger verb because it tells the readers how the child moved while went only tells the readers that the child did move. Ran makes a clearer picture in your readers' mind than went does.Try the following sentences:
I asked my mom to bake the cake.
I begged my mom to bake the cake.
I went back into the house when I saw him.
I scrambled back into the house when I saw him.
The snake moved away from the tourists.
The snake slithered away from the tourists.
Louie went down the hill with his new bike.
Louie sped down the hill with his new bike.
Activity
Read the following sentences. Replace the verb inside the parenthesis with a stronger verb.
Dad (goes) to his office everyday.
I (took) my bag from the floor and left.
The jar (broke) into tiny pieces.
Mary (cleaned) the pots and pans.
I spend a lot of time (looking) at the stars.
Aide:
Use verbs that are more specific than the ones in the parenthesis. The key word is HOW. How does Dad go to his office everyday? Find a verb that will answer that. Instead of using goes, you can substitute it with words that would indicate HOW he goes to the office like drives or walks. So you can rewrite #1 as Dad drives to his office everyday.
In #2, how did I take my bag? You can use grabbed to inject a sense of force or urgency instead of plainly using took, so you could instead write I grabbed my bag from the floor and left.
Instead of broke, you can use smashed or shattered so #3 can be written as The jar shattered into tiny pieces.
You can be more specific and use scrubbed instead of cleaned in #4 so the sentence could come out as Mary scrubbed the pots and pans..
And in #5, instead of looking, you can use gazing so you'll write it as I spend a lot of time gazing at the stars.
The Thesaurus will be a useful tool for this. A Thesaurus gives you a list of synonyms and antonyms.
Thesaurus
Meriam-Webster
Dictionary.com
Collins
Oxford
The thesaurus will help you in finding the perfect word for the picture you want to paint in the heads of your readers. Bear in mind though that you still need to stick with the word that best fits what you are trying to convey.
This post was made in response to the #SteemNest project of @steemph which aims to help Steemians in creating content. You can follow @steemnest for posts on Grammar, Formatting, and other tips in writing. If you have posts that you feel could help others in terms of creating content, please use the tag #Steemnest so they can find your work and share it to others.
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