| adverb |
| Definition: A word that modifies the meaning of verbs, adjectives (including numbers), and other adverbs — but not nouns. |
| Example:
(1) He walked slowly. (2) His ideas are really strange. (3) He was always in trouble. (In the above, the adverb modifies the phrase in trouble.) |
| Etymology: The word derives from the Latin adverbium, that which is added to a verb (from Latin ad, to + verbum, word). Note: The Latin term was invented by Flavius Sosipater Charisius who coined it to translate the Greek word epirrhema, adverb (from Greek epi, upon + rhema, verb). |
| OED: The term's first citation is from 1530: "It is harde to a lerner to discerne the difference bytwene an adverbe and the other partes of spetche." (Jehan Palsgrave, Lesclarcissement de la langue françoyse, 800) |