Grammar Basics

descriptive terms that modify the meaning of a noun. For example: brown dog, large building, tall tree.

parts of speech commonly referring to a person, place, thing, state or quality.

A part of speech that denotes existence, action or occurrence, these are more simply explained as “doing words”. Examples: to be, rise, jump, have, carry, sing, run, lift.

A part of speech that modifies the meaning of a verb, adjective or other adverb. For example easily, very and happily in the sentence: They could easily envy the very happily married couple.

a substitute for a noun. Examples are: I, me, she, he, her, him, it, you, they, and them.

a word that shows the spatial (space), temporal (time), or logical relationship of its object to the rest of the sentence. The words above, after, against, as, at, beneath, between, behind, by, during, except, for from, in, into, like, near, on, over, past, since, under, upon, and with are Examples

a word that joins other words, phrases, clauses or sentences. Some Examples are: and, as, because, but, or, neither/nor, for, since, so, until, yet, and while.

a word that expresses emotion. An interjection often starts a sentence but it can be contained within the sentence or can stand alone. Some Examples are: ah, aha, alas, aw, ay, bah, eh, hurray, man, oh, oho, oh-oh, ooh, oops, ow, oy, phew, ugh, uh, wow, yow.

From Greek anti- (against, opposing) and onoma (name).

word pairs with opposite meanings. They can be words differentiated by a prefix (original/unoriginal, respect/disrespect) or can comprise two completely different words (old/young, big/small).

From Greek syn- (together, same) and onoma (name)

words that have the same or nearly the same meaning. Some words have more than one group. For example: big – large (extensive, huge, substantial), important (eminent, influential, main), grown-up (adult, elder, grown), generous (altruistic, benevolent, gracious).

From Greek homos (same) and onoma (name).

words that are pronounced the same way but which differ in meaning or spelling or both. For example: bare/bear, to/too/two. Homophones are commonly used in puns and cryptic crossword clues.