- a group of words including a verb and its complements, objects, or other modifiers that functions syntactically as a verb. In English a verb phrase combines with a noun or noun phrase acting as subject to form a simple sentence.
- a phrase consisting of a main verb and any auxiliaries but not including modifiers, objects, or complements.
- a constituent of a sentence that contains the verb and any direct and indirect objects but not the subject. It is a controversial question in grammatical theory whether or not this constituent is to be identified with the predicate of the sentence
