verb phrase

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A phrase consisting of a verb and its auxiliaries, as should be done in the sentence The students should be done with the exam by noon.
• noun A phrase consisting of a verb, its auxiliaries, its complements, and other modifiers, as should be done with the exam by noon in the sentence The students should be done with the exam by noon.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun linguistics A construction in a clause consisting of a verb and its internal complements, objects, or modifiers.
• noun grammar A phrase that functions syntactically as a verb, consisting of a main verb and any auxiliaries.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun one of the two main constituents of a sentence; the predicate contains the verb and its complements