Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjectives are words that describe the qualities or states of being of nouns: enormous, doglike, silly, yellow, fun, fast. They can also describe the quantity of nouns: many, few, millions, eleven.


Adjectives tell the reader how much—or how many—of something you’re talking about, which thing you want passed to you, or which kind of something you want.

In previous question, both "beautiful" and "pie-eating" are adjectives because they both describe nouns.

"beautiful" tells the reader the quality of the hat
"pie-eating" tells the reader which contest

In previous question, tall, slim, and Jamaican are all adjectives

"tall and slim" give us a physical description of the girl, while "Jamaican" tells us witch flag.

An adverb is a word that modifies (describes) a verb (he sings loudly), an adjective (very tall), another adverb (ended too quickly), or even a whole sentence (Fortunately, I had brought an umbrella). Adverbs often end in -ly, but some (such as fast) look exactly the same as their adjective counterparts.

Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering questions such as how?, in what way?, when?, where?, and to what extent?.

In the question "barely" is the adverb.

"Barely" tells us to what degree the sound is noticeable.

In the question "sleepily" and "thirstily" are the adverbs.

"Sleepily" tells us how he stumbled and "thirstily" tells us how he reached for the coffee.