Anthimeria

Anthimeria is the use of a word as a different part of speech from its usual one, most often a noun used as a verb, as in 'she elbowed through the crowd'.

She elbowed through the crowd. Elbow is a noun, but here it does a verb's job, and the sentence gets a whole action out of one word. Compare she pushed through the crowd using her elbows, which takes six words to say less.

That is anthimeria (pronounced an-thih-MEER-ee-uh): a word moved from its usual part of speech into another one. Most often a noun becomes a verb, but any switch counts.

Anthimeria examples

English does this so often that most of the results no longer look like a figure of speech at all.

Noun used as a verb

• He pocketed the key.
• She shouldered the door open.
• They bussed the kids in from three towns away.
• He ghosted her after the second date.

Why they work: each verb carries a picture. Pocketed shows the hand and the pocket; shouldered shows which part of the body hit the door. A general verb such as put or pushed would lose the image.

Verb used as a noun

• That book is a good read.
• It was a big ask.
• The film is a must-see.

Why they work: the noun keeps some of the verb's action, so the phrase feels active even though it names a thing.

Adjective used as a noun or a verb

• The rich get richer. (adjective as noun)
• She calmed the horse. (adjective as verb)
• The house emptied after the funeral. (adjective as verb)

Other switches

• No ifs, no buts. (conjunctions used as nouns)
• He downed his drink and upped the stakes. (adverbs used as verbs)

Shakespeare

Shakespeare used anthimeria freely. In Richard II, the Duke of York answers Bolingbroke with Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle, turning the nouns grace and uncle into verbs to throw Bolingbroke's own polite words back at him. The rebuke is in the grammar.

Why anthimeria matters for fiction writers

Anthimeria is the cheapest route to a compressed, physical verb, which is exactly what flat prose tends to lack. A lot of weak sentences lean on general verbs (went, put, got, made) and then add a phrase to explain how. Often the noun in that phrase can become the verb:

• She put the letter into her pocket. becomes She pocketed the letter.
• He made his way through the crowd with his shoulder. becomes He shouldered through the crowd.

This is the reverse of the problem described under hidden verbs, where an action gets buried inside a noun (made a decision instead of decided). Both fixes aim at the same thing: put the action in the verb.

Anthimeria is also a voice tool. A character who says let's not overthink it, just text him sounds current. A narrator who Sundays at her mother's sounds playful and a little private. The switches a character makes tell the reader how they talk.

Common mistakes

• Office jargon. To action, to task, to solution read as jargon rather than invention, because the reader can see that a perfectly good verb already existed. Test: does the new verb do something the old one cannot? Elbowed does. Actioned does not.
• Stacking them. One fresh switch in a sentence is noticeable in a good way. Three in a row sounds like the writer showing off, and drifts into purple prose.
• Anachronism. Some switches are recent. A character in 1890 cannot ghost anyone or text anyone. In historical fiction, check when a usage appeared before giving it to a character.
• Unclear parsing. If the reader has to read the sentence twice to see that the noun is now a verb, the compression has cost more than it saved. The guard doored him makes the reader stop. The guard shut the door on him does not.
• Wrong voice. Playful switches in a formal or grieving narrator's voice break the tone. Keep them for voices that would use them.

How to use it in your draft

Search your manuscript for put, got, made and went followed by a prepositional phrase. Where the phrase contains a concrete noun, try turning that noun into the verb, then read the sentence aloud. Keep it if it is clearer and sharper; drop it if it sounds like a slogan.

Frequently asked questions

What is anthimeria in simple terms?

Anthimeria is taking a word that normally does one job in a sentence and making it do another. The most common version turns a noun into a verb, so 'elbow' the body part becomes 'she elbowed her way in'.

What is an example of anthimeria?

'He pocketed the key' uses the noun 'pocket' as a verb. 'That book is a good read' uses the verb 'read' as a noun. Shakespeare's 'uncle me no uncle' in Richard II uses the noun 'uncle' as a verb.

Is anthimeria the same as 'verbing'?

Verbing is the most common kind of anthimeria, turning a noun into a verb. Anthimeria is the wider term and covers any switch, such as a verb used as a noun or an adjective used as a noun. Linguists call the same process conversion or functional shift.

Is anthimeria grammatically correct?

Yes. English has always made new verbs and nouns this way, and many everyday words started as anthimeria. Whether a particular one works is a question of style and clarity, not grammar.

How do you pronounce anthimeria?

It is pronounced an-thih-MEER-ee-uh. The name comes from Greek words meaning 'one part instead of another', as in one part of speech standing in for another.