(n.) A kind of verbal noun, having only the four oblique cases of the singular number, and governing cases like a participle.
(n.) A verbal noun ending in -e, preceded by to and usually denoting purpose or end; -- called also the dative infinitive; as, "Ic haebbe mete to etanne" (I have meat to eat.) In Modern English the name has been applied to verbal or participal nouns in -ing denoting a transitive action; e. g., by throwing a stone.
Example Sentences:
(1) A gerund is a verb ending in -ing that acts as a noun: I like swimming, smoking is bad for you, and so on.
(2) A research on the acquisition of morphemes of plural, diminutive, augmentative, gerund, imperfect, and preterite with 109 Spanish children from 3 to 6 is reported.
(3) Thirty years on from the riots, one walks up Prince's Avenue, past what was the incinerated Rialto and the sign into Toxteth, and yet another sign promising imminent arrival into the "Regeneration Zone", and showing pictures of a perfect cereal-packet multiracial family, pristine modern houses and beautifully refurbished original stock – beneath which is the inevitable crass slogan that accompanies every corporate or political effort these days, always beginning with a pretentious gerund, in this case: "Creating neighbourhoods for the future".
(4) Four hundred and twenty-seven deaf students (age 10 to 19 years) and 60 hearing children (age eight to 10 years) judged the grammaticality of sample sentences which contained infinitival or gerundive complements.
(5) 7 Don't fear the gerund Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle's guide to life at St Custard's school , How to Be Topp, features a cartoon in which a gerund attacks some peaceful pronouns, but it is nothing to be afraid of.
Zero
Definition:
(n.) A cipher; nothing; naught.
(n.) The point from which the graduation of a scale, as of a thermometer, commences.
(n.) Fig.: The lowest point; the point of exhaustion; as, his patience had nearly reached zero.
Example Sentences:
(1) The method is implemented with a digital non-causal (zero-phase shift) filter, based on the convolution with a finite impulse response, to make the computation time compatible with the use of low-cost microcomputers.
(2) Of great influence on the results of measurements are preparation and registration (warm-up-time, amplification, closeness of pressure-system, unhurt catheters), factors relating to equipment and methods (air-bubbles in pressure-system, damping by filters, continuous infusion of the micro-catheter, level of zero-pressure), factors which occur during intravital measurement (pressure-drop along the arteria pulmonalis, influence of normal breathing, great intrapleural pressure changes, pressure damping in the catheter by thrombosis and external disturbances) and last not least positive and negative acceleration forces, which influence the diastolic and systolic pulmonary artery pressure.
(3) The final model has a probability 0.08 of underlying survival time being zero and, given non-zero survival time, takes the form of an exponential distribution with mean of 14.95 months.
(4) Robert Francis QC's official report in February on the Mid Staffordshire care scandal, in which an estimated 400 to 1,200 patients died unnecessarily at Stafford hospital between 2005 and 2008, called for the NHS to make "zero harm" its objective.
(5) Proper maintenance of body orientation was defined to be achieved if the net angular displacement of the head-and-trunk segment was zero during the flight phase of the long jump.
(6) Electromagnetic flow probes with an inner diameter of 2, 1.5 and 1 nm were used for studies on zero-line drifting and for calibration procedures in a series of rats and rabbits.
(7) The open probability is weakly voltage dependent, large at zero and positive potentials (cytoplasm minus SR lumen), and decreasing at negative potentials.
(8) Stepwise depolarizations from the holding potential (-67 to -83 mV) to a potential which varied from -10 to +63 mV resulted in an exponential decline of h from its initial level to a final, non-zero level.
(9) Average increases in nonvellus hair counts between months 4 and 12 were 216, 181, and 264 in the 2% minoxidil, 3% minoxidil, and placebo-to-3% minoxidil crossover groups, respectively, all highly significant differences from zero (p = 0.0001).
(10) For data sampled at a high rate (approximately 200 Hz) pupil velocity deviations from zero can simply be used, giving a satisfactory inaccuracy of about 5 ms. For data sampled at a low rate (less than 50 Hz), e.g.
(11) In 15 patients undergoing aortofemoral bypass, partial thromboplastin time (PTT) tests before and following intravenous administration of 75 U. per kilogram of heparin at zero, 30, 60, 90, and 120 minutes were determined for study of control of anticoagulant adequacy.
(12) As an index of inhomogeneous distribution of inspired air, the mean dilution number (the ratio of the first to zero moments) was calculated from each multibreath nitrogen washout during spontaneous breathing.
(13) Blood pressure was measured with a random-zero sphygmomanometer every 2 weeks of this 8-week trial.
(14) Pairwise correlation between an affected parent and child is zero: The disease is monogenic (no major expression gene).
(15) Where no fluoride was taken zero dmf scores were 41-69 per cent.
(16) He deploys a zero-risk strategy aimed at keeping his rightwing political base behind him, while convincing the public that he alone could lead the country in times of regional turmoil.
(17) Furthermore, the value of the flux ratio for this substance under conditions of zero electrochemical potential across the bowel wall unequivocally demonstrates active transport.
(18) As a result, more and more people are beginning to look towards Irish reunification as being a real possibility.” The overriding issue, however, in this most marginal constituency in Northern Ireland is the old binary, sectarian one: the zero-sum game of orange versus green.
(19) A reduction of tidal volume to zero or an increase by 30% led to a corresponding change of mean carotid artery pH level.
(20) The incidence of probable type B viral hepatitis in patients receiving factor IX concentrate was 13.8 percent (four of 29) versus zero percent (zero of 29) in control patients (difference not significant).