Gerund

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In linguistics, “gerund” is a term used to refer to various non-finite verb forms in various languages:

As applied to English, it refers to what might be called a verb's action noun, which is one of the uses of the -ing form. This is also the term's use as applied to Latin; see Latin conjugation.
As applied to Spanish and Portuguese, it refers to an adverbial participle (a verbal adverb), called in Spanish the gerundio and in Portuguese the gerúndio.
As applied to French, it refers either to the adverbial participle — also called the gerundive — or to the present adjectival participle.
As applied to Hebrew, it refers either to the verb's action noun, or to the part of the infinitive that follows the infinitival prefix (also called the infinitival construct).
As applied to Frisian, it refers to one of two verb forms frequently referred to as infinitives, this one ending in -n. It shows up in nominalizations and is selected by perception verbs.
As applied to Japanese, it designates verb forms ending in a nominaliser such as "-koto" or "-no". This is not to be confused with the "-te" or "-de" endings which denote present progressive.
As applied to other languages, it may refer to almost any non-finite verb form; however, it most often refers to an action noun, by analogy with its use as applied to English or Latin.

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