Verbs which are always transitive:
admire | give | owe |
afford | greet | pick |
allow | have | prefer |
blame | hit | prove |
bring | inform | put |
buy | interest | question |
contain | lend | remind |
cost | let | rent |
cut | like | rob |
deny | love | select |
enjoy | make | send |
examine | mean | show |
excuse | name | take |
fetch | need | teach |
fix | offer | want |
get | omit | wrap |
Example sentences with transitive verbs.
Examples:
-
She always likes him.
- He could only lend me a dollar.
- The whole family kept money under the mattress.
- The palmist taught me to read palms.
- The professor wrote an encyclopedia on astrology.
Verbs that are always intransitive:
abound | faint | rain |
ache | fall | remain |
agree | gallop | respond |
appear | go | rise |
arrive | hesitate | sit |
become | laugh | sleep |
bloom | lie* | smile |
come | linger | sneeze |
cough | live | stand |
cry | look | swim |
dance | occur | talk |
die | pause | thrive |
exist | pray | yawn |
* lie (lied), lie (lay/lain)
Examples:
-
His back garden abounds with weeds.
(Weeds is not an object; with weeds is a prepositional phrase.)
-
They arrive at the airport as the sun rises. .
(At the airport is a prepositional phrase. The two verbs arrive and rises do not need to have an object.)
-
While the parents are praying, the baby is crying.
(No need for an object.)
-
I yawned and then he yawned. .
(No need for an object.)
Verbs that are transitive/intransitive:
answer | help | read |
ask | hurry | refuse |
begin | jump | see |
borrow | know | sell |
choose | leave | sing |
climb | marry | tell |
dance | meet | touch |
eat | obey | walk |
enter | pay | wash |
fail | play | watch |
fill | promise | win |
grow | pull | write |
Example sentences showing same verbs that can be transitive and intransitive.
Examples:
-
She left the house early. (Transitive)
-
She left early. (Intransitive)
-
He borrowed some money from his mother. (Transitive)
-
He borrowed heavily from his father. (Intransitive)
-
My mother passed me in the hallway without looking at me. (Transitive)
-
All of us looked up as an UFO passed overhead. (Intransitive)
-
The parents sold the house to their son. (Transitive)
-
Their pet monkey was sold cheap to a friend. (Intransitive)
-
He told us a few short stories. (Transitive)
-
You need to eat less, or you might put on weight—you never can tell. (Intransitive)
-
She walked three puppies once a day. (Transitive) .
She walked into the wrong office in the office building. (Intransitive)