participle (n.) (P, part, PART)

A traditional GRAMMATICAL term referring to a word derived from a VERB and used as an ADJECTIVE, as in a laughing face.

The name comes from the way such a word ‘participates’ in the characteristics of both verb and adjective. It is thus distinct from the traditional notion of gerund, where a word derived from a verb is used as a NOUN, as in smoking is forbidden. In LINGUISTICS the term is generally restricted to the non-FINITE forms of verbs other than the INFINITIVE, viz. present and past, as in I am going and I have walked respectively, but, even here, there is a strong tendency to avoid the use of the traditional labels ‘present’ and ‘past’ participles, with their Latinate associations of time (inapplicable, for example, in a passive sentence like I shall be kicked, where the participle can hardly be ‘past’), and to use instead a neutral set of terms, such as -ing FORMS or -ED/-EN FORMS.