44 votes
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When to bemoan and when to moan

"Bemoan" is a transitive verb which takes an object so you can "Bemoan your fate" but not just "Bemoan" in the abstract or "Bemoan about your fate". "Moan", however, as an intransitive verb which ...
BoldBen's user avatar
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44 votes
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Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?

There is one. No one uses it. invalue, v.² transitive. To make valuable; to give value to. Literally no one. The OED notes that, as far as it can tell, it has only shown up in dictionaries glossing ...
lly's user avatar
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36 votes
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Is "create new" not pleonastic?

Create a new something is not always redundant. Even if it is slightly, it definitely connects the new created thing with what existed before it. For example, if you read: I am asked to create a ...
fev's user avatar
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13 votes

Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?

endear (historically) I've had to think of a popular answer that I had once given - before closing my account - on StackExchange : Why do Russians call their women expensive (“дорогая”)? In Old ...
FrankD's user avatar
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11 votes
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Is "He died himself." a correct sentence?

The example "he died himself" is grammatical provided it occurs in a context which allows "himself" to be interpreted as a sort of intensifier. For instance, "The doctor devoted his life to ...
Greg Lee's user avatar
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10 votes

Literary devices and sentence structure in Matthew 7:1 (KJV)

The literary device at play in your cited verse is parallelism, much stricter in the original Koiné: Μὴ κρίνετε ἵνα μὴ κριθῆτε mē krinete hina mē krithēte Not (y’all) judge so that not (y’all) should ...
KarlG's user avatar
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9 votes

When to bemoan and when to moan

As suggested in the following extract bemoan is a transitive verb whose object is generally an abstract concept (absence, lack, failure etc.) while moan is an intransitive verb: Bemoan is one of a ...
user 66974's user avatar
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9 votes

Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?

This is a good question, I think "Enhance" would be applicable in a lot of situations, though not a lot different to "Enrich". Interestingly for the opposite action of devaluing ...
RustyUK's user avatar
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9 votes

Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?

It's a hapax legomenon only attested once and formed by analogy with cheapen, but worthen To give worth to; value; make or become worth or worthy; appraise. (via Wiktionary)
metaperture's user avatar
9 votes

Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?

The OED says it's a US usage, but appreciate should work just fine for you: Originally U.S. Opposed to depreciate. a. transitive. To raise in value. They even give an example that fits your "[...
scohe001's user avatar
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8 votes
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Mnemotechnic approach to identifying transitive vs verb-adjective constructs

Attempting to analyse sentences in isolation runs counter to what language as a system of communication is. There is no way to disambiguate the plant has buried leaves without further context and/or ...
Arm the good guys in America's user avatar
8 votes
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What is it called when I poop the dog?

This is called transitivization, where an intransitive verb is turned around and made transitive. We're also making the subject the object. This workshop paper from Ellenbas, Mondorf, et. al. at ...
Spencer's user avatar
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8 votes

Literary devices and sentence structure in Matthew 7:1 (KJV)

Transitivity of "judge not" Webster's 1828 cites this verse as an example of the transitive form of the verb judge¹: JUDGE, verb transitive To censure rashly; to pass severe ...
Dan Bron's user avatar
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8 votes

Literary devices and sentence structure in Matthew 7:1 (KJV)

KariG's answer is very important, though the questioner does not have ready access to it. The original Greek has absolutely no literary device. It is plain Greek. Translating into the same plain ...
Tuffy's user avatar
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8 votes
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Does using a preposition phrase instead of a direct object change the transitivity of a verb?

Short answer The book takes the principled position that a noun phrase following a preposition is a Complement of that preposition, not an Object or other Complement of the verb. For that reason, the ...
Araucaria - Him's user avatar
7 votes

Is "He died himself." a correct sentence?

Without enough context, it will be ambiguous. "He died himself" pit against "He died a hero" could mean he died being his normal self without becoming a hero. So it's okay to use, ...
NVZ's user avatar
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7 votes

Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?

As tchrist (please correct me if I'm mistaken) mentioned in a comment, envalue is a word that, while not recorded in any dictionary, has seen actual use over the last hundred years and more with a ...
DW256's user avatar
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7 votes

Is "create new" not pleonastic?

It is pretty much idiomatic and the usage goes far back, as early as 1540 per the earliest citation in OED where it was used as create a new (something). OED lists the sense of the verb create for ...
ermanen's user avatar
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6 votes

Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?

A common verb for this is endow. To be endowed is to be gifted with good attributes, properties, possessions and such. This is related to the noun dowry, which is essentially value added to a bride. ...
Kaz's user avatar
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5 votes
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Can "flourish" be used as an active verb?

Nope! Flourish is an intransitive verb. It can't take a direct object. Take another look at the dictionary and you'll probably see some cryptic abbreviation like "v.intr." Plants grow. (ok, ...
Jason Orendorff's user avatar
5 votes

How to use "allow to do something" without mentioning a person?

Your unedited question had a French sentence in it that I interpret as: Our software XYZ allows the resizing and conversion of PNG images. Please note that the edit appears to have changed convert ...
Ian MacDonald's user avatar
5 votes

Is there an English transitive verb meaning "to make someone/something valuable"?

exalt To raise to a higher class, a higher degree of value or excellence; to dignify, ennoble. [According to definition e. of the OED] 1711 R. Steele Spectator No. 4. ⁋8 I shall not lower but ...
thomj1332's user avatar
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4 votes
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What are some give-type verbs that cannot undergo straight dative alternation?

You are right; they are 'off', in fact they're ungrammatical. "Donate" and "submit" are mono-transitive verbs; they can only take direct objects. With these verbs, the recipients or beneficiaries of ...
BillJ's user avatar
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4 votes
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Can "procrastinate" be a transitive verb?

Transitive In the 19th century and before, the transitive use of procrastinate in the sense ‘delay, postpone’ is quite frequent: This motion was opposed as tending to procrastinate the funding ...
KarlG's user avatar
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4 votes
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Is “bescumber” transitive or intransitive?

To bescumber, to scumber, scummerings, to discumber Becumber is normally transitive — or at least, can be. But you shouldn’t use it in casual, non-dialectal speech unless you’re being deliberately ...
tchrist's user avatar
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4 votes

When to bemoan and when to moan

Besides the already mentioned transitive/intransitive difference, another difference is that the word moan is usually associated with making an audible noise, whereas this is not the case with bemoan. ...
spacetyper's user avatar
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4 votes

Does using a preposition phrase instead of a direct object change the transitivity of a verb?

Intransitive verbs have no objects, only a subject. Transitive verbs have a subject, and a direct object. Ditransitive (or bitransitive) verbs have a subject, and a direct object, and also an indirect ...
John Lawler's user avatar
3 votes
Accepted

Transitive use of suicide

I don't think the users of this site really have much ability to answer the question "Is the transitive usage of suicide grammatical and commonly acceptable?" "X was suicided by Y" doesn't violate ...
herisson's user avatar
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3 votes

what is the meaning of " much less"?

From a native speaker: Let's say you have a 20% chance of affording a bicycle, and only a 1% chance for a car. Since your chance of the car is much less than your chance of the bicycle, you say "I ...
Yosef Baskin's user avatar
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