What is an Adverb?

adverb (noun): a word that modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb, expressing manner, place, time or degree; a word that can modify a phrase, clause or sentence

An adverb is a word that tells us more about a verb. It "qualifies" or "modifies" a verb(The man ran quickly). In the following examples, the adverb is in bold and the verb that it modifies is in italics.

• John speaks loudly. (How does John speak?)
• Afterwards she smoked a cigarette. (When did she smoke?)
• Mary lives locally. (Where does Mary live?)

But adverbs can also modify adjectives (Tara is really beautiful), or even other adverbs (It works very well). Look at these examples:

• Modify an adjective:
  - He is really handsome. (How handsome is he?)
  - That was extremely kind of you.
• Modify another adverb:
  - She drives incredibly slowly. (How slowly does she drive?)
  - He drives extremely fast.

Adverb Form

We make many adverbs by adding -ly to an adjective, for example:

• quick (adjective) > quickly (adverb)
• careful (adjective) > carefully (adverb)
• beautiful (adjective) > beautifully (adverb)

There are some basic rules about spelling for -ly adverbs. See the table below:

But not all words that end in -ly are adverbs. The following -ly words, for example, are all adjectives:

• friendly, lovely, lonely, neighbourly

And some adverbs have no particular form. Look at these examples:

• well, fast, very, never, always, often, still