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Word lists · Verbs · Letter O

  • obeybe obedient to
  • objectexpress or raise an objection or protest or criticism or express dissent
  • obligeforce somebody to do something
  • obliteratemark for deletion, rub off, or erase
  • obscuremake less visible or unclear
  • observediscover or determine the existence, presence, or fact of
  • obsesshaunt like a ghost; pursue
  • obstructhinder or prevent the progress or accomplishment of
  • obtaincome into possession of
  • occasiongive occasion to
  • occludeblock passage through
  • occupykeep busy with
  • occurcome to pass
  • offendcause to feel resentment or indignation
  • offermake available or accessible, provide or furnish
  • officerdirect or command as an officer
  • officiateact in an official capacity in a ceremony or religious ritual, such as a wedding
  • offsaddleremove the saddle from
  • offsetcompensate for or counterbalance
  • oglelook at with amorous intentions
  • oilcover with oil, as if by rubbing
  • omitprevent from being included or considered or accepted
  • opencause to open or to become open
  • operatedirect or control; projects, businesses, etc.
  • opposebe against; express opposition to
  • oppresscome down on or keep down by unjust use of one's authority
  • orbitmove in an orbit
  • ordainorder by virtue of superior authority; decree
  • ordergive instructions to or direct somebody to do something with authority
  • organisebring order and organization to
  • organizecreate (as an entity)
  • orientbe oriented
  • originatecome into existence; take on form or shape
  • ornamentmake more attractive by adding ornament, colour, etc.
  • ossifybecome bony
  • ostracizeexpel from a community or group
  • oustremove from a position or office
  • outclasscause to appear in a lower class
  • outdistancego far ahead of
  • outdobe or do something to a greater degree
  • outdrawdraw a gun faster, or best someone in a gunfight
  • outfaceovercome or cause to waver or submit by (or as if by) staring
  • outfightto fight better than; get the better of
  • outgeneralsurpass in generalship
  • outgrowgrow too large or too mature for
  • outlawdeclare illegal; outlaw
  • outlinedescribe roughly or briefly or give the main points or summary of
  • outlivelive longer than
  • outmaneuverdefeat by more skillful maneuvering
  • outmodemake unfashionable, outdated, or obsolete
  • outnumberbe larger in number
  • outplayexcel or defeat in a game
  • outputto create or manufacture a specific amount
  • outragestrike with disgust or revulsion
  • outrunrun faster than
  • outsmartbeat through cleverness and wit
  • outstripbe or do something to a greater degree
  • outweighbe heavier than
  • overburdenburden with too much work or responsibility
  • overcomewin a victory over
  • overdrivedrive or work too hard
  • overeatovereat or eat immodestly; make a pig of oneself
  • overemphasizeplace special or excessive emphasis on
  • overestimatemake too high an estimate of
  • overexposeexpose to too much light
  • overfeedfeed excessively
  • overfillfill beyond capacity
  • overflowflow or run over (a limit or brim)
  • overhaultravel past
  • overhearhear, usually without the knowledge of the speakers
  • overheatget excessively and undesirably hot
  • overindulgeovereat or eat immodestly; make a pig of oneself
  • overlapcoincide partially or wholly
  • overlayput something on top of something else
  • overloadbecome overloaded
  • overlooklook past, fail to notice
  • overpowerovercome by superior force
  • overproduceproduce in excess; produce more than needed or wanted
  • overreachfail by aiming too high or trying too hard
  • overriderule against
  • overruninvade in great numbers
  • overshadowbe greater in significance than
  • overshootshoot beyond or over (a target)
  • oversteppass beyond (limits or boundaries)
  • overstrainstrain excessively
  • overtakecatch up with and possibly overtake
  • overthrowcause the downfall of; of rulers
  • overturnturn from an upright or normal position
  • overwhelmovercome, as with emotions or perceptual stimuli
  • overworkuse too much
  • owebe obliged to pay or repay
  • ownhave ownership or possession of
  • oxidiseadd oxygen to or combine with oxygen
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Verbs That Start With O

Every verb whose base form begins with O, defined in one line, from Princeton WordNet's frequency-tagged core vocabulary.

What is on this list?

This page is a list of verbs whose base form begins with O — a straightforward answer to “verbs that start with O” and, since it is how teachers and students often ask the same question, “action words that start with O” as well. It is a reference list, not a tool: there is nothing to type in and generate, just a set of the everyday verbs the letter actually has.

Every card in the grid pairs the verb with a short definition, which is the part most word-start lists skip — a bare word like “gather” tells you it is a verb but not what it means, and a beginner reader or a crossword solver often needs both at once. A count above the grid says how many verbs made the cut, and a search box filters by the word itself or by its definition, so you can narrow the letter down to, say, only the verbs about movement or only the ones about speech. The site runs sister lists for adjectives, nouns, animals and foods built the same way, if verbs are not the part of speech you were after.

How this list was built

  1. Sourced from Princeton WordNet 3.1. Every verb here comes from WordNet, the lexical database built by linguists at Princeton University rather than a word list scraped from other sites, which records 8,691 single-word verbs once two-word phrases are set aside.
  2. Filtered by WordNet's own frequency signal. WordNet's semantic concordance is a body of text lexicographers hand-tagged with the specific sense of each word actually being used. Keeping only verbs with at least one tagged sense narrows those 8,691 down to 3,628, which drops the rare and technical tail while keeping the verbs people use.
  3. Defined with WordNet's own glosses. The definition on each card is WordNet's gloss for that verb, trimmed to the definition itself with the usage examples cut out. Nobody rewrote 3,628 definitions by hand, and none were invented.

What is missing, and why

Two limits matter most. First, every verb is listed in its base form: “run” is here, but “ran”, “running” and “runs” are not, so if you were searching for a past-tense or -ing form starting with O, you will need to convert it back to the infinitive to find it. Second, phrasal verbs are left out entirely — “give up”, “look after” and “run into” are all in WordNet, but they are two words, and this list only covers single words. That is a bigger loss for verbs than it would be for nouns or adjectives, because so much everyday English verb usage is phrasal, and none of it shows up here.

A few smaller things are worth knowing too. Many of these entries are also nouns in their own right — “run”, “walk” and “hand” all work as verbs here and appear again on the noun list, which is a true overlap rather than a mistake. The frequency filter is corpus-based rather than web-based, so it reflects a concordance built decades ago: a handful of verbs common in speech today did not make the cut, and a few dated ones survived. WordNet is also American English, so if you were expecting a British spelling for O, it may not be here. And the filter treats every letter equally regardless of how many verbs it actually has: X clears the threshold with zero verbs and Z with only three, so those two pages are built from below-threshold entries with every one flagged as such. If a competing list claims a dozen everyday options for either letter, that is padding, not research.

Why is it free?

This is a static page: the list was generated once from WordNet and the letter pages are served as plain HTML, so there is no model call and no per-visit cost to pass on. Nothing you type into the search box ever leaves your browser, there is no account to create, no watermark on anything since there is nothing to export, and no paywall between you and the definitions — the whole point of a reference list is that you can just look at it.