Anthimeria
The use of one part of speech as another — most often a noun used as a verb.
Anthimeria (Greek, 'one part for another') is the figure by which a writer or speaker uses a word in the grammatical role of a different part of speech. English is famously hospitable to it: nouns become verbs ('to google', 'to friend', 'to elbow'), verbs become nouns ('a big ask', 'a good read'), adjectives become nouns ('the good, the bad, and the ugly').
Shakespeare is the great English virtuoso of the figure. He turned nouns into verbs at will: 'grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle', 'season your admiration', 'dog them at the heels'. The effect is compression and surprise — one part of speech doing the work of two while forcing the reader to feel the transfer.
Anthimeria is one of the main engines by which English refreshes itself. Almost every new verb of the internet age ('to text', 'to inbox', 'to trend', 'to like') is anthimeria. Critics who complain about the trend are, in effect, complaining about a figure of speech Shakespeare used four hundred years earlier.
For writers, anthimeria is a tool for compression: 'she nurses him' says in one verb what 'she cared for him as a nurse would' says in seven. The risk is jargon — a paragraph in which every third word is a noun freshly pressed into service as a verb quickly becomes unreadable. Reserve the effect for a single sharp verb where a longer construction would go slack.
“But me no buts.”
Keep reading the glossary
A newly coined word or expression, often minted to capture something the existing vocabulary cannot.
A figure of speech that describes one thing as if it were another.
The comic misuse of a word for one that sounds like it — a staple of characterisation and unintended honesty.
A figure in which one word governs two or more others in different senses — often for wit or surprise.