nounswords

Nounswords is a coined term for a word that can function as both a noun and a verb (and sometimes other parts of speech) without any change in form, with context guiding interpretation. It describes a case of conversion or zero-derivation in linguistics.

Many languages permit such flexibility, and in English nounswords typically have a stable noun meaning with a related verb sense that emerges through usage. The forms remain identical in spelling and pronunciation, which contrasts with cases that involve inflection or affixation for a different lexical category.

Examples commonly cited as nounswords include drink (a drink; to drink), table (a table; to table a proposal), run (a run; to run), book (a book; to book), and name (a name; to name). Some nounswords show regional or contextual variation, such as table, where the verb sense can carry different connotations or usages in different dialects.

In linguistic analysis, nounswords highlight issues in part-of-speech tagging and semantic interpretation, since the same form can carry distinct syntactic roles and meanings depending on context. They are often discussed in studies of conversion, lexicon structure, and natural language processing, where accurate disambiguation relies on surrounding information.

The term nounsword serves as a concise label for this phenomenon and is not a standard category in formal grammars. It can be a useful descriptive tool in language-technology research and comparative linguistics.