verbal

Forms

1.Of or relating to words.
2.Concerned with the words, rather than the substance of a text.
3.Consisting of words only.
- We subjoin an engraving […] which will give the reader a far better notion of the structure than any verbal description could convey to the mind.
4.Expressly spoken rather than written; oral.
- You can't have verbal communication with a man in New South Wales, you know.
- I am not speaking of the verbal use of the term 'Fascist'. I am speaking of what I have seen in print.

1.A spoken confession given to police.
2.Talk; speech, especially banter or scolding.(colloquial)
- We'd give him a bit of verbal, out would come the bouncers, chucking their weight about, and it would all end in a right tear-up.
3.A verb form which does not function as a predicate, or a word derived from a verb. In English, infinitives, participles and gerunds are verbals.

1.To allege (usually falsely) that someone has made an oral admission.
- The problem of 'verballing' is unlikely to disappear, whatever the legal status of the person detained.
- Kelvin Condren maintained his innocence, claiming that he was 'verballed' in his police record of interview (so they were someone else's words not his).

Rare· #4647

From Old French verbal, from Late Latin verbālis (“belonging to a word”).

Equivalent to verb + -al.