Question

Is the underlined word a participle or verb? My cousin told me to hold my nose and puff my cheeks to get rid of the hiccups. the word underlined is told

Answer 1

told can indeed be a participle or a verb, depending on the context.

Here it's verb: it's a past tense of "tell".

It could be a participle if the sentence were as follows:

I puffed by cheeks to get rid of the hiccups, told by my cousin to do so. (it's a weird formulation but not incorrect I believe)