6 Essential Grammar Words You Should Know

Noun

Definition

Basically, a noun is a person, place, or thing. The “thing” category also covers animals, qualities (like “kindness”), and ideas (like “justice”).

This is the largest category of words in English.

What Do Nouns Do?

In a sentence, nouns can be used in a variety of ways. Here’s a brief list showing some of the most common uses:

• Subject: My grandmother came to visit for a few days.
• Object of a Verb: The ice storm froze the lake.
• Object of a Preposition: The house on the hill at the end of the road is haunted.
• Complement: John’s best friend is the manager at Publix.
• Apposition: The first U.S. President, George Washington, was born in 1732.
• Modifier of a Verb: He called four days ago.

Types of Nouns

There are many different types of nouns, but these are the most common:

• Proper nouns: Names of people and places, usually beginning with a capital letter (George, Lucy, Senator Philips, Louisville, City Hall)
• Common nouns: All nouns that aren’t proper nouns are common nouns (book, blanket, washer, car)
• Concrete nouns: Things that one can see or touch or otherwise perceive with their senses (dog, couch, plant, rain)
• Abstract nouns: Things that cannot be perceived by the senses, like qualities and ideas (kindness, patriotism, love, creativity)
• Mass nouns: Nouns that cannot be counted; these usually do not have a plural form (dirt, luggage, water, literature)
• Count nouns: Nouns that can be counted (pens, books, chairs)
• Collective nouns: Words that refer to a group of nouns (pack, swarm, flock, army)

Note that nouns can belong to more than one of these groups! For example, “dog” is a common, concrete, count noun.

Verb

Definition

Verbs are part of the predicate part of a sentence. They show some kind of action, occurrence, or state of being.

What Is a Predicate?

Full sentences need a subject and a predicate. The subject is who or what does the thing, and the predicate is what the subject does.

The predicate is not just the verb, though. It’s actually everything in the sentence that’s not the subject, so it could include verbs, objects, complements, adverbs, etc.

In the example below, “my sister” is the subject and “threw the vase out the window” is the predicate. This particular predicate is made up of a verb, direct object, and prepositional phrase.

Merriam-Webster puts it this way: “Predicates are usually everything in a sentence or clause that’s not the subject. They express what is said of the subject, and usually consist of a verb and other stuff that’s not the subject.”

Examples

Action verbs: I ran three miles. Joe hopped over the fence. My dog will devour that treat.

Occurrence: The dryer stopped working. The avocados ripened faster than I expected.

State of Being: I am happy. He has been waiting for hours. Stop being so rude.

Adjective

Definition

Adjectives are descriptive words. They describe something or someone, indicating quantity, quality, distinctions, appearance, etc. Adjectives are used to modify nouns.

Most of the time (but not always), adjectives come right before the noun that they’re describing.

Comparative Adjectives

You can turn a regular adjective into a comparative adjective by adding -er or -est to it.

• Base adjective: He was a happy man.
• Comparative adjective: He was a happier man than most.
• Superlative adjective: He was the happiest man on Earth.

Some adjectives can’t take -er or -est endings, so you’d just use more or most instead.

• Base adjective: The upset customer left in a huff.
• Comparative adjective: The more upset customer left while the less upset customers simply grumbled.
• Superlative adjective: The most upset customer was the one at the back of the line.

Then there are the irregular adjectives, which don’t take -er or -est endings and also don’t use more or most. Here are a few examples:

• Base adjective: good; comparative adjective: better; superlative adjective: best
• Base adjective: bad; comparative adjective: worse; superlative adjective: worst
• Base adjective: many; comparative adjective: more; superlative adjective: most

Proper Adjectives

Proper adjectives are formed from proper nouns, like French restaurants and Elizabethan dramas. “France” is a proper noun, so in its adjectival form, it’s a proper adjective (“French restaurants”). These adjectives should be capitalized, just like the proper nouns.

Be careful, though! Proper adjectives should only be capitalized when they are actually referring to the place or name from which they are derived.

If we are talking about a man who comes from France, we would call him a French man. But when we’re talking about french fries (most of which do not actually come from France), we would use a lowercase “f”: french fries.

Similarly, you wouldn’t capitalize brussels sprouts, but you would, of course, capitalize the word Brussels when referring to the Belgian city.

Click here to learn more about proper adjectives and when they should (and shouldn’t) be capitalized!

Examples

Here are a few different kinds of adjectives:

• Quality: brave, happy, lonely, clever, friendly
• Size: small, medium, big, huge
• Number: twelve, fifteen, several, few
• Temperature: hot, cold
• Cost: cheap, expensive

And the list goes on!

Adverb

Definition

Adjectives modify nouns, and adverbs modify verbs. Adverbs can also modify adjectives, other adverbs, prepositions, phrases, and entire sentences. They express a quality, place, time, number, or degree.

Most of the time, you can identify an adverb by looking for the -ly ending.

• Susie happily skipped down the sidewalk.
• Greyhounds can run at incredibly fast speeds.
• Fortunately, the project’s due date was delayed.

However, some adverbs do not take this -ly ending:

• Trent always wins the 400-meter dash.
• He was discouraged and almost threw in the towel.
• The artist played 30 songs and even gave an encore!

Conjunctive Adverbs

Conjunctive adverbs connect two clauses or sentences. They’re transition words that show the connection between the clauses or sentences.

The party was scheduled for Friday; however, due to bad weather, it’s being pushed to Saturday.

My boss wasn’t happy that the report was late. Nevertheless, she’s giving me a second chance.

Instant replay showed that the player’s foot was out of bounds; therefore, the ball went to the other team.

Examples

Adverb modifying an adjective: The group was almost satisfied, but not quite.

Adverb modifying another adverb: The bird screeched very loudly.

Adverb modifying a verb: She gleefully grabbed the bouquet.

Adverb modifying a phrase: I’m just stopping by briefly before I need to run off.

Adverb modifying an entire sentence: Unfortunately, the promised pizza party never actually happened.

Preposition

Definition

Merriam Webster gives a pretty good definition: “A preposition is a word—and almost always a very small, very common word—that shows direction, location, or time, or that introduces an object. Prepositions are typically followed by an object, which can be a noun, a noun phrase, or a pronoun.”

Another way to describe prepositions is to say that they signal relationships between elements or nouns in a sentence. That relationship might have to do with space, position, time, cause, possession, or any other way that the different elements might be connected.

Can You End a Sentence With a Preposition?

You might have heard from your middle school English teacher that you can’t end a sentence with a preposition. This is a load of nonsense that is based on Latin rules of grammar, not English.

Most grammarians agree that you are totally fine to end a sentence in a preposition. The Chicago Manual of Style—which is a pretty conservative grammar rule book—states, “The traditional caveat of yesteryear against ending sentences or clauses with prepositions is an unnecessary and pedantic restriction. And it is wrong.” It continues, “A sentence that ends in a preposition may sound more natural than a sentence carefully constructed to avoid a final preposition.”

Learn more about ending a sentence with a preposition (including where the ridiculous rule came from) here!

Examples

You might have heard that a preposition is anything that a frog can do to a log (or what a cat can do to a chair, or something else like that):

• The frog can hop outside the log.
• The frog can hop to the log.
• The frog can hop over the log.
• The frog can hide under the log.
• The frog can hide within the log.

However, this doesn’t cover all prepositions. For example, “after” is a preposition, and that’s harder to fit into a sentence about a frog and a log.

Here’s a chart with the most common uses for prepositions and some examples:

Pronoun

Definition

Pronouns are words that are used as substitutes for nouns. They can be used to refer to a noun that has already been named or a noun that doesn’t actually need to be named.

The noun that the pronoun is referring to is called its antecedent.

“She” is the pronoun referring to “Mary.” “Mary” is the antecedent of “she.”

Pronouns can serve as subjects and objects in a sentence. Most of them also have a possessive form.

Types of Pronouns

There are many different kinds of pronouns, including personal, reflexive, reciprocal, demonstrative, etc. Here’s a chart showing the different types:

What questions do you have about these words? Let me know in the comments!

Click here to check out 27 of the most commonly misspelled words.

Sources:

• “America’s Most Trusted Dictionary.” Merriam-Webster. Accessed August 7, 2024. https://www.merriam-webster.com/.
• Ebbitt, D. R., and W. R. Ebbitt. Index to English. 8th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.