What is 'to+verb' called?

[tulipflower]

A 'verb+ing' is a gerund. What is 'to+verb' called? Is there any word for that structure? I used to say that it is an 'infinitive' but I've just found 'infinitive' is the base form of the verb.

 

[Glizdka]

You are correct to call to+verb an infinitive.

A verb itself, without to, is what is sometimes called a bare infinitive, bare as in naked, without to. It is an infinitive nonetheless.

 

[jutfrank]

Many teachers call it a 'to-infinitive'.

 

[emsr2d2]

I used to use "infinitive" for the form with "to" until I discovered, when teaching in Spain, that schools there were teaching what I considered the bare infinitive (no "to") as "the infinitive".

To avoid confusion, I started calling them (and continue to call them), the "bare infinitive" and the "to-infinitive".