As another example, the word incredibly is used in the sentence Darius is incredibly tired to say that Darius isn’t just a little tired but he is tired to the point that he could fall asleep any moment. Adverbs are used to answer questions such as How?, Where?, When?, How often?, and How much? For example, in the sentence Jessie will clean her room tomorrow, the adverb tomorrow tells us when Jessie plans to clean her room. In the sentence Bob carefully built a sandcastle, the word carefully is an adverb that modifies the verb built.Īdverbs are a commonly used part of speech that, like adjectives, provide more information in a sentence or clause by modifying (describing) another word. Many adverbs end in -ly, and they usually appear next to the word that they modify. However, adverbs can do so much more than that! Before we get ahead of ourselves, though, it is best if we start by figuring out what an adverb is.Īn adverb is a word that is used to modify verbs, adjectives, clauses, and other adverbs. In all of our example sentences, we used adverbs to modify a verb. Finally, we can travel under the sea by saying Jenna walked underwater. If we want to add a little suspense, we can say Jenna walked suspiciously. If Jenna is a little clumsy, we could alternatively say Jenna walked awkwardly. However, we can spice things up with an adverb, as in the sentence Jenna walked gracefully. For example, the sentence Jenna walked is a fine sentence but a little unexciting. Adverbs are a major part of speech that we use to both provide more information and jazz up our sentences.

What does adverb mean