Word Types & Parts of Speech

Parts of speech, at a glance

Every word in English falls into one of these grammatical categories. Here’s a quick reference, with example words and a sentence for each.

Noun

A word that names a person, place, thing, quality, or idea.

teacherParisbicyclefreedom

“The teacher gave the class a difficult assignment.”

Pronoun

A word that stands in for a noun, so you don’t have to keep repeating it.

shetheyitsomeone

“She left her keys on the table, then came back for them.”

Verb

A word that expresses an action, occurrence, or state of being.

runbecomeseemwrite

“The dog ran across the yard and jumped over the fence.”

Adjective

A word that describes or modifies a noun.

quickblueancientcurious

“The curious cat explored the ancient, dusty attic.”

Adverb

A word that modifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb — often describing how, when, where, or to what extent.

quicklyveryyesterdaythere

“She spoke quickly and quietly during the meeting.”

Preposition

A word that shows how a noun or pronoun relates to another word — direction, location, or time.

inonunderbefore

“The cat hid under the table before dinner.”

Conjunction

A word that connects words, phrases, or clauses.

andbutbecausealthough

“I wanted to go for a run, but it started raining.”

Interjection

A word or short phrase that expresses strong or sudden emotion, often standing alone.

wowouchheyalas

“Wow, that was an incredible performance!”

Look up a word’s part of speech

How this works: A lookup asks the same dictionary service as the thesaurus page and groups definitions by part of speech (noun, verb, adjective…). Each block shows the first definition that includes an example if one exists. If the word is missing you get a not-found message, not a guess.

FAQ

What happens if the word I look up isn't found?

You'll get a clear not-found message rather than a guess. The tool only reports what the dictionary service actually returns — it doesn't try to infer a part of speech for a word it can't find.

Can a word have more than one part of speech?

Yes, and the tool shows that. Many English words function as multiple parts of speech — "run" as both a verb and a noun, for example — so results are grouped by part of speech, with a definition shown for each one found.

Where does the definition data come from?

The same dictionary service used by this site's Dictionary & Thesaurus tool, so results stay consistent between the two pages.

Why does it show only one definition per part of speech instead of a full list?

It shows the first definition that includes a usage example, where one exists, on the idea that an example sentence makes the part of speech clearer at a glance than a bare list of definitions would.

Word Types & Parts of Speech

FAQ

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