There are eight parts of speech. Of which, adjectives and adverbs are most commonly juxtaposed, as they describe more about another part of speech. While adjectives are primarily used to provide additional information about a noun or a pronoun, i.e. people, places, animals and things. On the other hand, adverbs are used to give you extra detail about a verb, adjective or adverb. Let’s understand these two with the help of an example:
- She was extremely friendly to me, as she was talking to me politely.
- The librarian scolded us for talking loudly. He is a very disciplined person.
In the first sentence, you might have observed that while friendly is used in the context of pronoun which is an adjective, politely is used to explain a verb, which makes it an adverb. In the second one, loudly is used to describe the verb, which again works as an adverb, whereas disciplined is used to describe a person, which is an adjective.
Content: Adjective Vs Adverb
Comparison Chart
| Basis for Comparison | Adjective | Adverb |
|---|---|---|
| Meaning | An adjective is a word, which adds to the meaning of the noun or pronoun it precedes or succeeds. | An adverb is a word, which changes or describes a verb, adjective or another adverb, which it precedes or succeeds. |
| What it does? | Qualifies a noun or pronoun. | Modifies a verb, adjective, preposition or conjunction. |
| Questions | What kind, which and how many. | How, when, where, how often, to what extent and how much. |
| Examples | She is a sweet girl. | She talks very sweetly. |
| This house is very big. | You need to invest your money wisely. | |
| You are a nice person. | He is exceptionally intelligent. |
Definition of Adjective
An adjective is a term that we use in our sentence to expound the meaning of a noun or a pronoun, i.e. it acts as a modifier of a noun, so as to indicate the quality of the thing mentioned, express its quantity, extent or to highlight something which is rare in nature. To put simply, adjective confines the meaning of a noun or a pronoun.
Generally, an adjective is positioned before a noun or a pronoun it describes. However, it may also appear after the words they identify or describe. Given below are some examples of an adjective:
- I met an old lady.
- It was a sunny day.
- Mukesh Ambani is a big businessman.
- The Ganga is a holy river.
- The history class is boring.
- Payal is a lazy girl.
A compound adjective is one that is formed by combining two or more words with a hyphen, such as a technology-based scheme, etc.
There are three forms of adjective, which are commonly called as degrees of the adjective. When the adjective appears in its regular form, it is called as a positive degree. The other two degrees are used for the purpose of comparison, i.e. comparative degree and superlative degree.
Definition of Adverb
An adverb is one of the eight parts of speech which gives a description of a verb, adjective, clause or adverb or provides additional information about it. It acts as an intensifier, in the sense that it gives emphasis to the verb, adjective, clause, phrase or adverb. Generally, it talks about the time, place, degree, frequency, manner, of anything.
You can easily identify the adverb in a sentence, by checking the suffix, i.e. an adverb ends in -ly. However, there are some adverbs which do not ends with -ly such as fast, hard, early, late and so forth. These are placed either before a verb or after it. Let’s take a look at the examples of adverbs.
- I will do it carefully.
- She has done the job really well.
- Actually, I also feel the same.
- I trust you completely.
- Luckily, I got the train.
- I am extremely sorry.
Key Differences Between Adjective and Adverb
The difference between adjective and adverb can be drawn clearly on the following grounds:
- In grammar, the adjective is among the eight parts of speech which identifies and describes a noun or a pronoun, i.e. person, place, animal or thing. As against, an adverb is also one of the parts of speech, which gives you further information about a verb, adjective or any other adverb.
- While an adjective qualifies a noun or pronoun, the adverb is used to modify the verb, clause, phrase, adjective, preposition and conjunction.
- Adjective provides answers to questions such as which, how many, what kind, etc. As against, adverbs will answer the questions like how, when, where, how much, how often, to what extent etc.
Examples
Adjective
- That is a large almirah.
- The girl has small feet.
- Aishwarya is wearing a pink gown.
Adverb
- I have to pay the electricity bill monthly.
- It is absolutely fine with me.
- Jia is really happy today.
How to remember the difference
Adjective and adverb, both elaborate another part of speech. Adverbs are actually formed by adding -ly at the end of the adjectives such as emotionally, hopefully, carefully, badly, primarily, etc. which also becomes its identification. However, there are some adverbs that seem like adverbs but are actually adjectives such as hourly, weekly, monthly, yearly.
Gnagne Blanchard says
Thé article is a very good paper. It describes clearly the difference and the course je comprehensive.
Alex says
In the example, you say “monthly” is an adverb… but then in the paragraph of “How to remember the difference” you state that the word “monthly” is an adjective.