To a linguist, there is an obvious difference between verbal and oral: only the first word can be used to mean “pertaining to a verb”. But for people who don’t talk about parts of speech so often, the more relevant question is whether verbal can refer to spoken language (as opposed to written language), or if it can only refer to the more general sense of all language:
(1a) The written warning is primarily the verbal warning put in writing […]
(1b) […] general verbal skills, such as verbal fluency, ability to understand and use verbal reasoning, and verbal knowledge.
Some people insist that verbal can’t be used as in (1a). Verbal is derived from the Latin verbum, meaning “word”, and that means that it only distinguishes things involving words from things not involving words. This is the usage in (1b), where verbal reasoning is implicitly differentiated from mathematical reasoning, or spatial reasoning, or any other form of reasoning that is not based in words. Clearly this is a valid usage of verbal.
And, while we’re at it, we can quickly agree that oral would be inappropriate for the usage in (1b). “Oral knowledge”, for instance, is specifically knowledge that is spoken aloud, and I really can’t see that being the intended meaning. I think we can also all agree that oral is definitely appropriate for the usage in (1a). So what we have a is 2×2 chart, with three of the values filled in:
| using words | spoken | |
| verbal | YES (1b) | ? (1a) |
| oral | NO (1b) | YES (1a) |
The only remaining question is whether verbal is allowable in that last cell, with the meaning “spoken”. And the answer is yes, and it has been almost since verbal‘s first appearance in English. The Oxford English Dictionary first attests verbal in 1483, but at that point it modifies people. William Caxton writes:
“We be verbal, or ful of wordes, and desyre more the wordes than the thynges.”
The first attestation of verbal meaning “composed of words” comes between 50 and 100 years later, in either 1530 or 1589.* And the first attestation of verbal meaning “conveyed by speech” comes in 1617:
“The Chamber of the Pallace where verball appeales are decided […]”
This meaning has persisted. I looked at the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA) for the most common nouns to follow verbal over the past 200 years. The two most common collocates were communication and expression, each with 43 hits. Unfortunately, looking at the contexts in which these were used, it’s hard for me to tell which meaning was intended. But the third most common collocate, message, appears 40 times, spread out over the past two centuries. And these are pretty unambiguously examples of the “spoken” meaning, because it’s rare that you’d need to distinguish message delivered in words from those that aren’t. For instance:
“His reply was this verbal message: ‘Wait — and trust in God!'” [1875]
“The verbal message is the key to the written one.” [1909]
I don’t have numbers on the relative usage of the two meanings of verbal, so I’m not going to try to say that one is more common than the other. But it is pretty clear that the “conveyed by speech” meaning is valid.
Does this acceptability mean that you should unquestioningly use it in this way? Not necessarily; there is a potentially significant ambiguity here, so it’s not the best choice in all situations. On occasion, it will matter whether verbal means “conveyed by speech” or “involving words”. If I write to a tutor and ask them to improve my verbal skills, it may be ambiguous as to whether I’m looking for instruction in public speaking or vocabulary building. That’s a trivial example, but in legal contexts, it’s probably better to refer to oral contracts, warnings, etc. than verbal ones, just to avoid the ambiguity.
In most cases, where this ambiguity is small or unimportant, you can and should use whichever feels better to you. You can freely swap between the two meanings in different contexts, as I do. A lot of the time, the context (especially what noun verbal is modifying) will clarify things. So in the end, our chart becomes:
| using words | spoken | |
| verbal | YES | YES |
| oral | NO | YES |
Summary: Verbal can refer either to anything delivered in words or something that is specifically spoken. This latter usage is sometimes condemned as modern sloppiness, but it’s been persistently attested for 400 years. The ambiguity is generally not sufficient to be problematic, so it’s only in cases where precision is paramount that the latter usage should be avoided.
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*: The 1530 attestation is listed under this definition, but its usage seems to me identical to Caxton’s usage, modifying people. The 1589 attestation is unambiguously referring to language, referring to “verbale sermons”.
Motivated Grammar 
17 comments
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January 10, 2012 at 9:24 am
mike
A quick search on Teh Google suggests that many people use the term “verbal agreement” to mean “oral agreement.” (Wikipedia is careful to note that “verbal agreement” is ambiguous in a legal sense.) Somewhat oddly, the ngram viewer shows “verbal agreement” peaking around 1880. (?)
January 10, 2012 at 9:33 am
Thomas Voß
There is another important difference: There is no such thing as verbal sex.
January 10, 2012 at 10:22 am
John Cowan
Thomas, that’s what you think! Consider phone sex.
January 10, 2012 at 2:57 pm
dw
Just to make things more complicated, there’s also “oral” (of the mouth) vs. “aural” (of the ear), which are homophones for many (most?) people.
An aural exam (e.g. for student musicians) may well also be an oral exam.
January 12, 2012 at 8:19 am
Richard Hershberger
While there are activities that could be characterized as “verbal sex”, in practice (and in contrast to oral sex) they are not. I suspect that taboo avoidance is partially in play with the preference some people have for “verbal” over “oral”.
January 13, 2012 at 2:27 am
Eugene
I don’t quite believe that anyone could interpret “verbal contract” to mean a contract composed of words as opposed to a contract delivered by word of mouth. All contracts contain words. If a prototypical contract is written, then a verbal contract can have only one meaning.
But I suppose someone could think a verbal contract is one composed entirely of verbs.
January 13, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Richard Hershberger
“All contracts contain words.”
Is this true? Consider the (possibly apocryphal) scenario of traders on a foreign shore with no common language leaving goods on the beach. The locals place goods of their own next to the foreign goods and leave. The traders return and, if they judge the price adequate, remove the local goods, leaving the foreign goods behind. This looks to me like an offer and an acceptance, with mutuality.
But yes, your actual point is well taken. Contracts are normally written, so the marked form “verbal contract” is clearly understood to mean spoken.
January 15, 2012 at 12:34 am
Archon's Den
I just went back to read the, “I’m good” post. For local Germans where I am, the response to Wie Gehts, is Nicht Schlect, meaning, “Nothing Slides.” Or, to have some fun with the Anglos, some say, “To hell vit dee gates! Vee jump over dee fence.”
January 26, 2012 at 11:40 pm
Mohinder Bhatnagar
Oral and verbal lend themselves to the text depending on the context. While ‘oral orders’ will look better as ‘verbal orders,’ ‘oral hygiene’ cannot by any stretch of imagination be replaced by ‘verbal hygiene.’
March 18, 2012 at 9:07 pm
Kate
This reminds me of a controversy over the name of a special session at a conference I attended on “non-verbal communication.” The problem was that most of the talks in the session involved research on sign languages, which to many people (including myself) most definitely count as “verbal.” So sign languages can be an example of verbal and not oral communication, though clearly not everyone agrees.
March 30, 2012 at 6:02 am
André Farhat
Thank you for this blog (the whole thing, not just this post). I am a translator and writer and it is refreshing to find people like you who are able to question the “assumed”. I am from Montréal and there incessant quarrels about grammar and usage issues, both in French and English.
This conversation is necessary and refreshing, at least to me.
April 10, 2012 at 10:34 am
Gabe
Kate: Yeah, I’m surprised that sign language would be considered non-verbal. Gesture, sure, but not sign language.
I’ve got a little anecdote for you from this weekend: I was at a thrift store and mentioned to the cashier that I was studying linguistics. He excitedly told me that he knew some sign language. Because it was a thrift store funding an African charity, and because I had previously noticed some of the workers speaking unfamiliar languages, I asked him which sign language, thinking it might be Kenyan SL or something else other than ASL. And he turns to me with a patronizing look and says “Oh no, sign language is universal”. Sigh.
August 30, 2012 at 4:28 am
Dadfour
My German colleagues often stuggle with oral and verbal. We work in biotech/pharmacology and so I tell them “oral in” (as in a medication taken by mouth), and “verbal out” (as in speech exiting the mouth). It usually prevents a major gaffe (although I do recognize that an oration also exits the mouth).
July 12, 2013 at 8:38 am
belletrist
While I respect the science of linguistics and was drilled, early in my college career, on the relative character of grammatical judgments – so that I must often insist on it to professional editors who take a knee-jerk prescriptivist line – I have a problem with this blog. The problem is that judgments about “correct” and “incorrect” are not always intended as scientific judgments to stand or fall by the empirical evidence. Instead, judgments about “correct” and “incorrect” are often intended normatively, to influence behavior along certain lines according to a larger notion of how such behavior can inform and enrich wider areas of life – and these judgments are often consciously normative (not merely unconsciously normative claims by people under the delusion that they are proclaiming general scientific truths about English). In other words, “correct” and “incorrect” do not have just one significance, O Linguist. Like other words, they have a range of meanings. They can be used performatively to affirm one’s adherence to a certain philosophy, a certain value set, a certain way of life, and they can play a role in rhetorical invitations to others to share the same values. For example, some consider etymology valuable because it awakens historical awareness – not just of Anglo-Saxon, Romance, and classical contributions to English, but of those from other language families as well – and thereby spurs historical curiosity more generally. For someone who finds etymology valuable in this way, or in others, it can be helpful to point out the distinction between “verbal” and “oral,” and to teach people that this distinction is indeed the “correct” one, though often disregarded (as my auto tires have a correct inflation pressure that is often disregarded without harmful results to my everyday driving). Now, you are free to CALL etymology silly and of zero value to English “oral” competence, as defined by the linguist. You are also free to be disdainful of the idea of a culture that perpetuates itself, or aspects of itself, by passing on knowledge about how its language was formed. But that is simply for you to proclaim that your values are different from another’s. It is not scientific.
March 6, 2016 at 4:37 am
Antonina Piehler
i love you!
October 17, 2016 at 1:37 pm
Advocatus Diaboli
It is really quite straightforward. “Verbal” means relating to or in the form of words – whether written or oral. Contracts may either be verbal or implied. A verbal contract may be either written or oral. An implied contract is one that is created by actions of the parties involved, but it is not written or spoken.
February 7, 2017 at 7:47 am
Verbal and Diction (spotted at NationalReview.com) | Lexicide
[…] in legalese) in the 1990s. If that’s not venerable enough for you, both Dictionary.com and this fellow cite uses of verbal to mean “spoken” as early as the 1400s. (Perhaps Caxton was […]