Beautifully.” “He slowly walked towards the bus.” “He owns the bright

Adverbs  

What is an adverb?

An adverb refers to any element in a sentence used to modify a verb, adjective, another adverb, or even an entire clause.

Adverbs can be single words, as in:

• 
  “You write beautifully.”
  
• 
  “He slowly walked towards the bus.”
  
• 
  “He owns the bright red car.”
  

They can also be phrases (called adverbial phrases) or entire clauses (called adverbial clauses). For example:

• 
  “She ran very quickly so as not to be late.” (The adverbial phrase very quickly modifies the verb ran.)
  
• 
  “The cat lives in the shed.” (The adverbial prepositional phrase in the shed modifies the verb lives.”
  
• 
  “She looked excited, as if she could jump up and dance at any moment.” (The adverbial clause as if she could jump up and dance at any moment modifies the independent clause She looked excited.)
  

Single-word adverbs, adverbial phrases, and adverbial clauses are sometimes grouped together under the umbrella term adverbials, which simply means any word or group of words used as an adverb in a sentence. However, because the term is so broad in meaning, it is very common to simply call any adverbial element an “adverb.”

Categories of Adverbs

There are many different categories of adverbs, which provide specific kinds of descriptions and which behave slightly differently in a sentence.

The table below provides a quick breakdown of the different categories and how they are used to describe something in a sentence. Go to the sections of each individual category to see more examples and learn more about how they are used.

(Note that most of the examples below are single-word adverbs. However, adverbial phrases—and sometimes adverbial clauses—can also belong to each category.)