A participle looks like a verb and acts like an adjective.
Words with an -ing ending are often verbs. The boy is swimming. The baby is crying.
Swimming and crying are verbs that show show action.
But we can also use these -ing words as adjectives.
The swimming boy yelled for help.
The crying baby woke everyone up.
Swimming describes boy. Crying describes baby. Both swimming and crying are acting as adjectives.
Here are more examples of participles acting as adjectives in a sentence:
Janet took swimming lessons at the YMCA. Swimming describes lessons.
The flying object landed on the teacher’s desk. Flying describes object.
The marching soldiers wore new uniforms. Marching describes soldiers.
The jumping frog landed in our boat. Jumping describes frog.
Participles can look like verbs and act like adjectives even when they end with letters other than -ing.
Seeing the broken vase made Mom cry.
She keeps her saved money in a piggy bank.
I left that borrowed book in the car.
A mouse ran through the open door.
Each of these dark words could be a verb, but in these sentences, the words are acting as adjectives.
A participle is a word that looks like a verb but acts like an adjective. Participles come before a noun to describe the noun.