From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishparticiplepar‧ti‧ci‧ple /ˈpɑːtəsɪpəl, pɑːˈtɪsəpəl $ ˈpɑːr-/ ●●○ noun [countable] technicalSLG one of the forms of a verb that are used to make tenses. In English, present participles end in -ing and past participles usually end in -ed or -en.
Examples from the Corpus
participle• He: True, in many cases you can get away with using a participle instead of a gerund.• There are no dangling participles or misplaced modifiers.Origin participle (1300-1400) Old French Latin participium, from particeps ( → PARTICIPATE); because it takes the part of both verb and adjective