Linking Verbs for Students and Children

Linking Verbs: Everyone knows what a verb is, but not everyone knows what a linking verb is. To stress a little on a verb, a verb is that word which stands to signify action or the doing of any particular thing. So, then what is a linking verb? To keep it as simple as possible, a linking verb is a verb that does not stand to represent action, but instead, renames or makes an attempt at describing the subject. Here’s a classic example – “The boy looked satisfied”. Now, going by the rules, the word ‘looked’ denotes action because it only means that someone is looking for something. However, that is not the case here because the word ‘looked’ describes the boy’s state of mind, and that makes the word ‘looked’ act like a linking verb. It may not be easy to comprehend what a linking verb means or how it behaves in a sentence, but by the time you are done with what is to come your way, you should be pretty adept at dealing with linking verbs. Read on to find for yourself a list of linking verbs and associated information.

What Is A Linking Verb

List

The following is a list of linking verbs. These words are true links between verbs. If it wasn’t for these verbs, a sentence would make no sense, because there would really be no link between one word and a verb or one verb and another verb.

• am
• are
• are
• being
• appear
• be
• become
• feel
• get
• grow
• is
• lie
• look
• prove
• remain
• seem
• sit
• smell
• sound
• stay
• taste
• turn
• were
• has been
• might be
• might have been

The words that you see above are true examples of linking verbs. When used in the right way, these verbs connect nouns and pronouns to other facts or information present in the sentence.

Here’s presenting a few linking verb examples. Going through these examples, and noticing how the verbs are put to use, will help you become an expert at the use of linking verbs.

• Out of everyone who had gone to the play, only a very few thought that the play was actually good.
• After consuming a large meal, Swati almost always feels sleepy and tries her best to shirk work.
• One look at the picture and it was easy to tell that it appeared blurry.
• There is something about the food you are cooking, it smells delicious and I can hardly resist myself.
• He, being the kind of man that he was, refused to shy away when asked to deal with the consequences of his actions.
• This boy is very smart; cheating him off his money is not a possibility.
• From the word go, it looked like the lecture was going to be a bore, but a few others thought that it only became tedious after the first twenty minutes.
• This guitarist appears confused; perhaps he is not sure about what he has to play when the lights go on.
• Mr. X became the President of the country he was born in; for him it was such an honor.
• If you continue to behave like you are behaving right now, it would be safe to say that there is no difference between you and him.
• I try my best to ignore it, but there is something about this soup, it really tastes funny and there is something that you should do about it.
• If India will go ahead and win the last game against England or will England walk away with a thumping victory remains to be seen.
• When I entered my friend’s room, it didn’t take me too long to realize that he looked like he was up to no good.
• He grew tired or running and decided to take a break from the race, ultimately losing out on the first place.
• Please stop shredding away to glory because after a certain point of time your guitar only sounds noisy.
• Since she had hardly eaten the whole day, she looked extremely hungry and also looked like she could do with a feast fit for a king.
• Wow! Apart from looking extremely delicious, those cookies smell divine. Would you care to give me one?
• Although winter has set it, during the day it still feels like its summer.

The examples given above should make it easy for to use a linking verb at the right place and in the right way. As you must have noticed in the above examples, there are no set words which are kept aside as linking verbs. Maybe there are a few such verbs which always act as linking verbs but that isn’t all. Any verb, if used in a way that is doesn’t describe an action, rather talks of a state of being, can be a linking verbs for that particular statement. Feel free to mull over these sentences for as long as you think you need to, and you’d be ready to use linking verbs with no guidance whatsoever.