Verbs are words that show an action (sing, run, eat). Verbs can also show a state of being (exist), or a thing that happens (develop, connect). If a word communicates something that someone or something can do, it’s a verb.
Nouns are words that refer to a person (Noah Webster), place (Springfield), or thing (book), or also to an animal (dog), a quality (softness), an idea (justice), or an action (singing). If a word refers to something you can point to or label, it’s a noun.
Nouns and verbs both have different forms and sometimes a word can look like one, but be the other. To distinguish between them, you have to consider what the word is doing in the sentence.
Here’s the word singing functioning as both kinds of words:
verb: They were singing.
noun: Singing is something they like to do.
Note that in the first example, the action of singing happened; a person was singing. In the second example, the action of singing did not happen; instead, the action of singing is being identified as a thing that someone likes to do.
