Word Classes Explained in English with Helpful Examples

There are different classes of words, sometimes called ‘parts of speech’. The word come is a verb, letter is a noun, and great is an adjective. Some words belong to more than one word class. For example, test can be a noun or a verb.

For Example:

He passed the test. (noun)
He had to test the machine. (verb)

Word Classes Explained in English

There are eight main word classes in English. In this article, we are going to learn about these eight main word classes with examples in English:

1. Verb: Words that describe actions, occurrences, or states.

For Example:

Climb, Eat, Welcome, and Be
He runs every morning to stay fit.

2. Noun: Words that represent people, places, things, or ideas.

For Example:

Aircraft, Country, Lady, and Hour.
The teacher gave us a lesson about freedom.

3. Adjective: Words that describe or modify nouns.

For Example:

Good, British, Cold, and Quick.
She wore a blue dress to the party.

4. Adverb: Words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs, often ending in -ly.

For Example:

quickly, always, approximately
He completed the task quickly.

5. Preposition: Words that show the relationship between a noun (or pronoun) and other words in a sentence.

For Example:

to, of, at, on
The book is on the table.

6. Determiner: Words that clarify nouns by indicating which one, how many, whose, or what kind.

For Example:

the, his, some, forty-five
I’ll take some water, please.

7. Pronoun: Words used to replace nouns to avoid repetition.

For Example:

We, you, them, and myself.
She loves reading books about history.

8. Conjunction: Words that connect clauses, sentences, or words.

For Example:

and, but, so
She likes tea and coffee.

There is also a small class of words called ‘interjections‘. They include oh, ah, and mhm.

Interjections: Words or phrases that express emotions or reactions, often standing alone.

For Example:

wow, ouch, hey, oh
Wow, that performance was amazing!

Verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs are ‘vocabulary words’. Learning vocabulary means learning verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs.

Prepositions, determiners, pronouns, and conjunctions belong to much smaller classes. These words are sometimes called ‘grammatical words’.

Most word classes can be divided into sub-classes. For example:

Verb

Ordinary verb: go, like, think, apply
Auxiliary verb: is, had, can, must

Adverb

Adverb of manner: suddenly, quickly
Adverb of frequency: always, often
Adverb of place: there, nearby
Linking adverb: too, also, etc.

Determiner

Article: a, the
Possessive: my, his
Demonstrative: this, that
Quantifier: all, three

So, that was our today’s lesson on a very important English grammar topic, ‘eight parts of speech’. Learning these word classes with the given examples will help you to enhance your grammar skills. You can speak English without making any mistakes, if you follow and practice these words classes.

Now, I am going to share with you a very helpful chart of these eight word classes. You can learn through these charts. I hope you like it: