A finite verb is a verb

Verb

A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...

 that is inflected

Inflection

In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...

 for person

Grammatical person

Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...

 and for tense

Grammatical tense

A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...

 according to the rules and categories of the languages in which it occurs. Finite verbs can form independent clause

Independent clause

An independent clause is a clause that can stand by itself, also known as a simple sentence. An independent clause contains a subject and a predicate; it makes sense by itself....

s, which can stand on their own as complete sentence

Sentence (linguistics)

In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...

s.

The finite forms of a verb are the forms where the verb shows tense, person or number. Non-finite verb

Non-finite verb

In linguistics, a non-finite verb is a verb form that is not limited by a subject and, more generally, is not fully inflected by categories that are marked inflectionally in language, such as tense, aspect, mood, number, gender, and person...

 forms have no person or number, but some types can show tense.

• Finite verb forms include: I go, she goes, he went
• Non-finite verb forms include: to go, going, gone

In the Indo-European languages (such as English), only verbs in certain moods

Grammatical mood

In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...

 are finite.