Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The part of speech that modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb.
- n. Any of the words belonging to this part of speech, such as so, very, and rapidly.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In grammar, one of the indeclinable parts of speech: so called from being ordinarily joined to verbs for the purpose of limiting or extending their signification, but used also to qualify adjectives and other adverbs: as, I readily admit; you speak wisely; very cold; naturally brave; very generally acknowledged; much more clearly. Adverbs may be classified as follows: Adverbs of place and motion, as here, there, up, out, etc. Of time and succession, as now, then, often, ever, etc. Of manner and quality, as so, thus, well truly, faithfully, etc. Of measure and degree, as much, more, very, enough, etc. Of modality, as surely, not, perhaps, therefore, etc. Often abbreviated adverb
Wiktionary
- n. A word that modifies a verb, adjective, other adverbs, or various other types of words, phrases, or clauses.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A word used to modify the sense of a verb, participle, adjective, or other adverb, and usually placed near it
WordNet 3.0
- n. the word class that qualifies verbs or clauses
- n. a word that modifies something other than a noun
Etymologies
- Middle English adverbe, from Old French, from Latin adverbium (translation of Greek epirrhēma) : ad-, in relation to; see ad- + verbum, word, verb; see wer-5 in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Remember the definition of an adverb — “an adverb is a word used to modify a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.””
“Perhaps no adverb is necessary? blog comments powered by Disqus publicola nerds”
“Another flat adverb is right, which I used in the phrase read that right a few sentences ago.”
“(As a possible mnemonic, adverb is a single word and noun phrase is two words.)”
“Hyphens are reinstated if the - ly adverb is part of a longer compound: formally-agreed-upon format not-so-environmentally-friendly products”
““Ahlan” in adverb form lit. = “as one of the household”: so in the greeting “Ahlan wa Sahlan””
“The position of the adverb is crucial to the interpretation, though; if the sentence were “Obama hopefully speaks of movement on jobs bill”, I’d get the sentential meaning much more readily than the “full of hope” meaning.”
“A sentential adverb is asked to modify a sentence — instead of modifying the verb, it modifies the entire proposition — and that, we’re told, just isn’t done.”
“But I think my favorite example of a flat adverb is fast, because it’s uncontroversially an adverb, and it has no - ly version:”
“(Other examples: the claim that you shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition, the claim that “none” takes a singular verb instead of a plural one, and the claim that “hopefully” as a disjunct adverb is nonstandard.)”
Led astray by the no-split-infinitives fetish « Motivated Grammar
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘adverb’.
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Language
word, sentence, novel, book, novella, vignette, memoir, anthology, paragraph, stanza, poem, haiku and 123 more...
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Word Words
Words that describe other words
adverb, verb, noun, adjective, pronoun, Synonym, antonym, phrase, dictionary, grammar, word, passage and 19 more...
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Linguistic terminology
phonics, phonology, morphology, morphemes, metathesis, allomorphs, phonemes, linguistics, vowel, consonant, noun, pronoun and 6 more...
recombinantdna master of prescription, aren't we? Jun 3, 2008
uselessness Make sure you always use adverbs correct. Jan 25, 2007