We have often come across words such as SWIMMING, SINGING, or WRITING. These words are formed from SWIM, SING and WRITE by adding ‘ING’. Words that are formed by adding ‘ING’ to other words are known as gerunds.
Did you notice something else about the words? They are basically verbs transformed into gerunds by adding ‘ing’. Despite this, gerunds have the character of nouns when used in sentences. One difference, though, is that gerunds do not have distinct plural forms.
Gerunds are one kind of non-finite verb, the others being infinitives and participles. It is possible to use gerunds in many situations, for example: