auxiliary verb

American  

[awg-zil-yuh-ree vurb, -zil-uh-] / ɔgˈzɪl jə ri ˌvɜrb, -ˈzɪl ə- /

noun

Grammar.

1. a verb used before and together with certain forms of other verbs, such as infinitives or participles, to express distinctions of tense, duration, possibility, obligation, etc., as in I am listening, We have spoken, They can see, Did you go?

---

auxiliary verb British  

noun

1. a verb used to indicate the tense, voice, mood, etc, of another verb where this is not indicated by inflection, such as English will in he will go, was in he was eating and he was eaten, do in I do like you, etc

---

auxiliary verb Cultural  

1. A “helping” verb that modifies the main verb, as in “Gail can win,” “Gail did win,” “Gail could have won.” A question often begins with an auxiliary verb: “Did Gail win?” “Could Gail lose?” The various forms of the verbs can, have, is, and does frequently act as auxiliaries.

---

Etymology

Origin of auxiliary verb

First recorded in 1755–65

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

auxiliary verb

Similarly, the allegedly unsplittable verb will execute is not a verb at all but two verbs, the auxiliary verb will and the main verb execute.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

“Where can they be?” asked the master, with a strong accent on the auxiliary verb.

From Humorous Ghost Stories by Dorothy Scarborough

From the difficulty of retaining a right discrimination of tense seems to have proceeded the active auxiliary verb.

From View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, Vol. 3 by Henry Hallam

Keeping to the auxiliary verb to be, we find that I am is in Sanskrit Greek Lithuanian asmi esmi esmi.

From Lectures on The Science of Language by Max Müller

The union remains, however, a loose one, and when person and tense are manifest by the connection, the auxiliary verb is omitted.

From The Philosophic Grammar of American Languages, as Set Forth by Wilhelm von Humboldt With the Translation of an Unpublished Memoir by Him on the American Verb by Daniel Garrison Brinton