Adverbs

What Is an Adverb?

An adverb is a part of speech that provides greater description to a verb, adjective, another adverb, a phrase, a clause, or a sentence.

A great way to pick out an adverb from a sentence is to look for the word ending in -ly. Although that's not universally true, it's a great place to start. Also, given their function, these fundamental elements of the English language are usually placed right before or after the verb in the sentence.

Adverbs are intensifiers and they can even come in the form of an adverb phrase. That just means you're looking at two or more words that act as an adverb. Let's take some time to dive (v.) deeply (adv.) into these popular modifiers.

Identifying an Adverb

So, you can tell whether or not a word is an adverb by considering its function in the sentence. If it is describing a verb, adjective or other adverb it's an adverb.

Let's talk a little bit more about that -ly ending. We've compiled a list of 100 adverbs, and you'll see that many of them end in -ly. While that's a popular way to identify these modifiers, it's important to remember that isn't universally true. Don't forget adverbs such as "always", "often", "sometimes", "seldom", and "never." You've also got conjunctive adverbs such as "also," "besides," "meanwhile," and "likewise."

But, since the -ly form is very common let's keep the party going with a few more examples:

The dog messily ate his dinner.
I happily handed in my test.
She quickly washed the dishes.

You can tell that these words are adverbs because they're describing the verbs in the sentence and they end in -ly.

Many high-frequency words are also adverbs. For example, "very," "much," "more," and "many" can all be adverbs.

The puppy's behavior was very bad.
The much smarter boy won the spelling bee.
I so want to go to that concert tonight.

Common Errors with Adverbs and Adjectives

Since adverbs and adjectives both modify other words, people often mistakenly use an adjective when they should use an adverb and vice versa. For example, the following sentence is incorrect:

He behaved very bad on the field trip.

This is incorrect because "bad" is an adjective being used to describe "behaved," which is a verb. It should read:

He behaved very badly on the field trip.

On the other hand, this would be correct:

His behavior was bad on the field trip.

Here, the adjective "bad" is correctly describing the noun "behavior."

Good and well

The words good and well are common triggers to the adverb vs. adjective confusion. It's important to remember this:

Good is an adjective that modifies nouns.
For example: That good boy (n.) just gave his little sister a hug.
Well is an adverb that modifies verbs or even adjectives.
For example: He listens (v.) well.
That well educated (adj) woman went on to marry a celebrity.

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