Adverbs

An adverb is a word that describes or adds to the meaning of ...

Example Question Asked / Answer: Adverb
a verb
 She walked slowly. How did she walk?
Answer: slowly
an adjective
 He's a really nice guy. To what degree is he nice?
Answer: really
another adverb
 Jean gets embarassed very easily. How easily does Jean get embarassed?
Answer: very

adverbs or adjectives?

Many adverbs are formed by adding -ly" to adjectives.

  Adjectives   Adverbs
sweet sweetly
quick quickly
sincere   sincerely  




  1. However, an "-ly" ending does not mean that the word is an adverb. For example:

    • adjective: She is a friendly girl. [modifying the noun "girl"]
    • adjective: She is friendly. [describing the subject "she"]

    Other adjectives ending in "-ly" include costly, cowardly, deadly, friendly, likely, lively, lonely, lovely, silly, ugly, unlikely. These words are not normally adverbs.




  2. For example, the word "fast" may be used as an adjective or an adverb.

    • adjective: He loves fast cars. [modifying the noun "cars"]
    • adverb: Airplanes go fast. [modifying the verb "go"]

    Other words with the same form for adjective and adverbs include early, straight, hard, high, late, near, wrong.




  3. An adverb may have two forms (e.g., late and lately); one with an "-ly" ending and one without.

    • adjective: We had a late dinner. [modifying the noun "dinner"] *
    • adverb: He worked late last night. [modifying the verb "worked"]
    • adverb: He has not been looking well lately. [modifying the adjective "well"]


    Word Adjective Adverb 1 Adverb 2
    early We're attending the early evening performance. Try to arrive early if you want a good seat.
    straight Jean has straight hair. The car was coming straight towards me.
    hard The plums are still too hard to eat. Don't work too hard. hardly [= almost not]
    I could hardly hear what she said.
    high She slowly climbed up to the top of the high mountain. Seagulls are flying high in the sky. highly [= very]
    Jean is a highly intelligent girl.
    near The holidays are drawing near. The train station is quite near. nearly [= almost]
    I nearly missed the train.
    wrong You have called the wrong number. You spelled my name wrong.

    Wrong instead of wrongly is used informally after a verb.     		wrongly
    You wrongly spelled my name.

Quiz adverbs or adjectives?




Remember an adverb (as the name "ad + verb" implies) adds information to verbs, adverbs or adjectives but an adjective cannot modify an adverb. Adjectives usually modify nouns or pronouns (e.g., She is a friendly girl); sometimes they function as subject complements describing the subject (e.g., She is friendly).

One way to tell if a particular word (phrase or clause) is an adverb is to ask a question, for which the answer is that word (phrase or clause).
If the question uses ...
• how?
• where?
• when?
• for how long?
• how often?
• why?
• with what result?
• how certain?
• under what conditions?
• to what degree/extent?
 adverb of manner
adverb of place
adverb of time
adverb of time/duration
adverb of time/frequency
adverb of purpose/cause
adverb of result
adverb of certainty
adverb of condition
adverb of degree [intensifier]
then the word is probably an adverb.


For details Types of Adverbs


* Adjectives answer the question: What kind of?
For example, "What kind of dinner did we have?" Answer: late