What Is an Adverb?

Adverbs provide more information about a verb, an adjective or another adverb that can relate to manner, degree or place.

Let’s take a look at adverbs using some examples.

Adverbs and Verbs

Just as an adjective provides more information about a noun, an adverb tells us more about how a verb is being carried out.

For example, in the sentence “I am running quickly,” ‘quickly’ is the adverb.

Adverbs can be related to descriptions (generally formed by adding ‘-ly’ to an adjective), time (‘once,’ ‘twice,’ ‘rarely,’ ‘often,’ ‘almost’) or place (‘here,’ ‘there’).

Adverbs and Adjectives

Adverbs can modify adjectives.

For example, ‘too’ in the sentence, “It is too hot,” or ‘very’ in the sentence, “It is very hot.”

When an adverb modifies an adjective it is almost always placed in front of the adjective it is modifying.

Adverbs and Adverbs

We saw previously that adverbs can provide more information about how a verb is being carried out in the sentence, “I am running quickly.”

However, we could expand this further, and say, “I am running fairly quickly.”

This time, we have an adverb ‘fairly,’ modifying another adverb, ‘quickly.’

Adverbs and Sentences

Adverbs can also be used to modify entire sentences!

For example, ‘fortunately,’ in the sentence:

“Fortunately, I am running today.”

What Is a Comparative Adverb?

Just as we have seen with adjectives, adverbs can also compare the degree of the action of a verb with another.

For instance, “I ran quickly,” can be modified to make a comparison, such as “I ran more quickly than you.”

If the adjective is a single syllable, where we add ‘-er,’ in order to form the comparative, the corresponding adverb behaves in the same way.

For example, in the phrase, “He is fast,” the adjective can have ‘-er’ added to make a comparison. In this case, the sentence, using adjectives, may become “He is fast but she is faster.”

Comparative adverbs work in the same way. You could also say, “He runs fast but she runs faster.”

Similarly, if the adverb has two or more syllables, then the comparative adverb uses the form with ‘more.’ For instance, “She works carefully, but he works more carefully.”

What Is a Superlative Adverb?

Phrases using superlative adverbs are used less often and can become clumsy.

However, just as comparisons can be made, you can also use superlative adverbs to express the most or the least degree with which an action is carried out.

For instance, you can say, “He ran most quickly,” meaning that, out of all of the runners, he was the one that completed the action to the highest degree.

In another example, you might say, “He completed the work least carefully.”