The Eight Parts of Speech, Explained with Examples

Every word in a sentence has a job. Grammarians sort those jobs into eight traditional parts of speech. Knowing them won't make you a better writer overnight, but it gives you the vocabulary to understand almost every other grammar rule and to work out why a sentence feels wrong.

Nouns: people, places, things and ideas

A noun names something. That something can be concrete (dog, kitchen, Lisbon) or abstract (honesty, idea, Tuesday). Proper nouns name a specific person, place or organisation and take a capital letter.

A quick test: if you can put the, a or some in front of it, it is probably a noun. The happiness works; the quickly does not.

Pronouns: stand-ins for nouns

A pronoun replaces a noun so we don't have to repeat it. Maya lost her keys, so she borrowed mine.

Common types include personal pronouns (I, you, they), possessive pronouns (mine, yours, theirs), reflexive pronouns (myself, themselves), relative pronouns (who, which, that) and demonstrative pronouns (this, those).

Verbs: actions and states

A verb tells you what the subject does or is. Action verbs describe something happening (run, write, laugh). Linking verbs connect the subject to a description (is, seem, become). Auxiliary or "helping" verbs team up with a main verb to show tense, mood or voice: She has been working.

Every complete sentence needs at least one verb. If you can't find one, you are looking at a fragment.

Adjectives: describing nouns

An adjective modifies a noun or pronoun, answering questions such as which one?, what kind? or how many? The red door, three apples and she seems tired all use adjectives.

Adjectives usually come before the noun, but after a linking verb they follow it. Articles (a, an, the) are technically a small class of adjectives called determiners.

Adverbs: describing everything else

An adverb modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb. It answers how?, when?, where? or to what extent? Examples: she sang beautifully, a very tall building, we left early.

Many adverbs end in -ly, but not all (soon, never, very, well), and some -ly words are adjectives (friendly, lovely). Ask what the word is modifying rather than trusting the ending. For the full story, see adjectives vs adverbs.

Prepositions: showing relationships

A preposition links a noun or pronoun to the rest of the sentence, usually to show place, time or direction: on the table, after lunch, towards the exit. The preposition plus its noun is a prepositional phrase.

There is an old "rule" that you must never end a sentence with a preposition. It was never a real rule of English. What are you looking at? is perfectly correct.

Conjunctions: joining ideas

A conjunction joins words, phrases or clauses.

• Coordinating conjunctions join equal parts. The seven are easy to remember as FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.
• Subordinating conjunctions introduce a dependent clause: because, although, when, if, unless, while.
• Correlative conjunctions work in pairs: either … or, neither … nor, both … and.

Interjections: bursts of feeling

An interjection expresses emotion and stands apart from the grammar of the sentence: Wow!, Oops, Ouch, that hurt. They are common in speech and informal writing and rare in formal prose.

One word, many jobs

English is flexible, and plenty of words switch roles without changing form:

This is why you identify a part of speech from the sentence, not from a word list. It also explains a word-game quirk: dictionaries for Scrabble and Words With Friends list each spelling once, so a word only needs to be valid as some part of speech to be playable.

Practice quiz