This chapter deals with a number of distinctive semantic, morphological, and syntactic properties of verbs. Section 1.1 gives a brief characterization of the category of verbs and verb phrases by describing some of their more salient properties. This will help the reader to identify verbs and verb phrases in Dutch on the basis of their form, function and position in the sentence. Section 1.2 presents a syntactic and semantic classification of verbs. Since meaning and form of linguistic expressions are two sides of the same coin, this section will also attempt to link the proposed classifications. Sections 1.3 and 1.4 continue with the most characteristic morphological features of verbs, their inflection. Dutch inflection comes in three types, depending on whether the verb is in the indicative, imperative or subjunctive mood. Section 1.3 discusses the unmarked indicative forms of the verb, and Section 1.4 discusses the more special imperative and subjunctive forms of the verb, as well as their uses. Section 1.5 continues with a discussion of the temporal, modal, and aspectual properties encoded in the verbal system by inflection on the finite verb and the use of non-main verbs, and shows how these properties interact to provide a wide range of temporal and non-temporal interpretations of verb sequences. Like nouns and adjectives, verbs are an open class and as such cannot be exhaustively listed. New verbs are introduced into the language by derivation, compounding, borrowing, etc.; cf. Booij (2002/2015a), De Haas & Trommelen (1993) and Haeseryn et al. (1997) and Section 3.3 for a discussion of verbs with the prefixes be-, ver-, and ont-.