Adverb

This article is part of the grammar course. You may choose to follow it in a structured way, or read each item separately. Word classes noun verb adjective adverb article preposition conjunction pronoun interjection Units of language syllable word phrase clause sentence Structure of a clause Subject Verb Complement Adverbial view template

• In Primary School, you may have heard adverbs called ‘describing words’, like adjectives. Adverbs were used to describe verbs, where adjectives describe nouns. (Note the etymology: adverb.)
• In Secondary School, adverbs were ‘words used to modify a verb’. (Modify = say more about the way in which a verb is ‘done’, or carried out, or ‘happens’). At this stage, you may have been taught that an adjective qualifies a noun. ('Qualify' here means "To express some quality belonging to (a noun)" (OED)
• In more modern grammar, word classes are defined as much by the grammatical contexts in which they are found. Adverbs are used in several ways. If you need to go a little deeper into defining this class of words, see Adverb in modern grammar.

(Note that many adverbs used with verbs – but not all – end in –ly. This is a way of forming adverbs out of adjectives. Compare "He drew a rough picture" (adjective) with "He drew a picture roughly" (adverb).)

Like adjectives, adverbs can be inflected - that is, they can change their shape, particularly the ending, for different grammatical usages. In the case of adverbs, the inflection is for comparison. In English, adverbs (and adjectives) have three degrees of comparison: the positive, for example loud; the comparative (louder); and the superlative (loudest).