Primary School English Quiz - Verbs 05 - Nouns Formed from Verbs (Questions)

We have learnt a number of things about verbs. Verbs can be confusing as they appear in every conceivable form. Verbs are ‘doing’ or ‘action’ words. Verbs are of different classifications and types. But, did you know that nouns can be formed from verbs?

RUN is a verb and the noun form of RUN is RUNNER.
LIE is a verb and the noun form of LIE is LIAR.
DECIDE is a verb and DECISION is a noun derived from it.

In the earlier quizzes we found that words from one part of speech can be found in another part of speech. We can also take a word from one part of speech and form a new word in another part of speech by adding a prefix or a suffix. Sometimes such words can be formed by just placing the prefix or suffix side by side with the root word. Sometimes we need to make changes to the root word and add some letters to change it into another word. While suffixes and prefixes have certain meanings in them and they pass on that meaning to the new word formed forming nouns from verbs is not that simple.

More often than not nouns are formed from verbs that are by and large unique and very little conventions can be found. One of the common suffixes used to convert verb into noun is MENT. Verbs such as ARRANGE, REFRESH, EMPLOY and REPLACE are converted into nouns ARRANGEMENT, REFRESHMENT, EMPLOYMENT and REPLACEMENT by adding the suffix MENT.

Another facet of verbs and nouns is the fact that there are many words which are both verbs and nouns by themselves such as ANSWER, LAUGH, MEASURE and REQUEST.

Sometimes, a verb can give rise to more than one noun. For instance, READ is a verb that gives rise to READER and READING besides being a noun also. In the quiz that follows see how many nouns you can identify from the given verbs.