VERBS OF AMERICAN ENGLISH
I have collected here a list of American English verbs. I found most of the verbs in The Random House-Webster's College Dictionary (Random House, 1999). A minority of them are pulled from newspapers, fiction, essays, poetry and other pleasure reading conducted between May 2003 and November 2006.
ORGANIZATION OF LISTS
The verbs are collected in five sets. The main collection includes all weak, strong (or irregular), idiomatic, and prepositional verbs I've found. Weak verbs (which take the “-ed” suffix in order to form the past tense, like “track” and “hammer”), idiomatic verb phrases (whose meaning is figurative in nature, like “bell the cat” and “clear the air”), and prepositional verb phrases (whose meaning is figurative, like the idiomatic phrases, but are distinguished by their inclusion of a preposition, like “put on” and “line up”) are collected separately for ease of access. I've also compiled a list of strong verb conjugations. Note that plain-text versions of these lists are available for download.
ON THE POSSIBILITY OF UP-TO-DATE, COMPLETE LISTS OF VERBS IN COMMON USAGE
This list is not exhaustive or up-to-date, nor do I seek to present it as such. I do not believe it is possible to make an up-to-date, complete list of verbs in common usage. There is always a delay between when a word is created (used by one person in a single context) and when it is recognized as being part of common usage (used by many people in many contexts): by the time the word is recognized as being part of common usage, it is already commonly used. Any list of verbs in common usage will lag common usage, and would be out-of-date at its making.
WHY THIS LIST COULD ONLY BE TENTATIVE
The set of verbs is not a closed set. To get an idea of possible verbs outside common usage, consider the methods by which verbs are commonly coined. Verbs are frequently created by modifying the sense of an existing noun with a verb like “to use” (“to hammer” is to “to use a hammer”), “to do” (“to Charleston” is “to do the Charleston”), or “to make” (“to color” is “to make colored”). Verbs are also made by applying suffixes to nouns (as in “idolize” from “idol” + “-ize”) and adjectives (like “quicken” from “quick” + “-en”). Prefixes are sometimes used to produce verbs from existing verbs, as in “redo” from “re-” + “do.” It is also possible to wholly fabricate verbs, as Lewis Carroll did in his nonsense verse “Jabberwocky.” (Word formations referenced from Shorter OED, fifth edition, 2002, Oxford University Press; and Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, first edition, 1995, H.W. Wilson Company.)
WHAT'S THE USE?
I offer this list of verbs without warranty as to its orthographic or lexicographic validity, and without prohibition regarding its use. Some uses it has served include but are not limited to the following: Book designer Charles Nix used it as a starting point for compiling his 3,627 designable verbs. Computer science masters student Julia Birke used an earlier version in her natural language processing work. Search terms recorded by my webhost and emails from visitors indicate that the list has been helpful in studying American English. I have found it rather useful in overcoming writer's block. If you come up with a new use, let me know at: saulters {at} gmail {dot} com.
