What part of speech is the word first

adverb.
First has other senses as an adjective, adverb, and noun. As an adjective, first describes something as being the original, with nothing else coming before it in time or in a series.

Is first an adverb?

“First” is a flat adverb meaning it takes the same form as its adjective pair, but while some flat adverbs mean the same as their “-ly” versions (the sun shone bright/brightly), “first” and “firstly” have diverged slightly and are not always interchangeable.

Is first an adjective of number?

Definite numeral adjectives are used to denote exact number or position of the subject in the sentence. Both cardinals and ordinals number come under it such as one, first, two, second, four, third, three, seven, eighty five, one third, double, triple two fifths, half, seventh, etc.

What is the word first in grammar?

First and firstly are both ordinal (or ordering) adverbs that English speakers and writers use to enumerate related points (e.g., first… second…

What part of speech is First Second Third?

Numbers (one, two, three) and ordinals (first, second, third) are also considered determiners.

Is 1st an adjective?

first used as an adjective:
The ordinal number corresponding to one.

Is first a noun verb adjective pronoun conjunction or article?

as a pronoun: It’s often tougher for a team in their second year than their first. as an adverb: Speak to me first, before you do anything. as a sentence adverb (making a comment on the whole sentence or clause): First, I want to explain the purpose of this meeting. as a noun: He got a first from Oxford.

What type of adjective is first?

Answer: adjective. being before all others with respect to time, order, rank, importance, etc., used as the ordinal number of one: the first edition; the first vice president.

Is one an adjective or pronoun?

Sometimes we use the word one as an adjective, as in “I’ll have just one scoop of ice-cream,” and we seldom have trouble with that usage. But we also use one as a pronoun, and this is where one becomes surprisingly complex. Sometimes the pronoun one functions as a numerical expression: Those are lovely scarves.

Is all an adjective or adverb?

In spoken and written English, the word “all” has several functions. It can be used as a adjective, an adverb, a noun, or a pronoun. This word can be categorized as an adjective if it is used to introduce a noun in the sentence. Generally, the word “all” expresses the entire quantity or extent of something.

adverb
Grammatically speaking, then is used as an adverb or adjective, while than is used as a conjunction or preposition.

What part of speech is between?

preposition
between preposition, adverb (TIME)

Which is correct first or firstly?

First, and firstly are both correct, since first is also an adverb. So you can say: I prefer the train because I can see the landscape. Secondly, I have control over my luggage, and thirdly, it is better for the environment.

Is the word first a noun?

First is also used as a noun to mean the person or thing that is before all others, as in rank. First has other senses as an adjective, adverb, and noun. As an adjective, first describes something as being the original, with nothing else coming before it in time or in a series.

Is Fifthly a word?

in the fifth place; fifth.

What type of word is first and second?

ordinal numbers
“First,” “second,” “third,” “fourth” and so on are called “ordinal numbers,” terms defining a thing’s place in a series (as opposed to “cardinal numbers,” such as “one,” “two,” “three,” etc.).

What type of part of speech is their?

possessive pronoun
Their is the possessive pronoun, as in “their car is red”; there is used as an adjective, “he is always there for me,” a noun, “get away from there,” and, chiefly, an adverb, “stop right there”; they’re is a contraction of “they are,” as in “they’re getting married.”

Where does the word first come from?

Old English fyrst “foremost, going before all others; chief, principal,” also (though rarely) as an adverb, “at first, originally,” superlative of fore; from Proto-Germanic *furista- “foremost” (source also of Old Saxon fuirst “first,” Old High German furist, Old Norse fyrstr, Danish første, Old Frisian ferist, Middle

What part of speech is step?

pronunciation: step parts of speech: noun, verb phrases: in step features: Word Combinations (noun, verb), Word Explorer. part of speech: noun. definition 1: the movement made by lifting one foot and putting it down in another place; motion used in walking.

How do you use the word first?

First sentence example

1. It was the first money that he had ever had.
2. First it was the inheritance thing.
3. The first cars were called “horseless carriages.”
4. He was the first great American painter.
5. Still, it was her first car and one with memories packed into it.
6. First of all, it will keep you safe.

Which part of speech is the word he?

pronoun
The word ‘he’ can be a pronoun, adjective, or noun. It is used as a pronoun in this sentence: He gave me his lunch money when I lost mine.

The word ‘first’ may be used as many parts of speech.

It may be used as an adjective when describing a noun, e.g. He was the first President of the United States. or — He played first violin in the orchestra.

It may be used as an adverb when describing time or order, e.g. He came first in the race. or — Please phone me firstbefore you drop in.

It is a noun when used in Baseball in reference to First such as first base, or when someone has done something unusual and you can say, «That’s a first!»

A part of speech is a term used in traditional grammar for one of the nine main categories into which words are classified according to their functions in sentences, such as nouns or verbs. Also known as word classes, these are the building blocks of grammar.

Every sentence you write or speak in English includes words that fall into some of the nine parts of speech. These include nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, articles/determiners, and interjections. (Some sources include only eight parts of speech and leave interjections in their own category.)

Learning the names of the parts of speech probably won’t make you witty, healthy, wealthy, or wise. In fact, learning just the names of the parts of speech won’t even make you a better writer. However, you will gain a basic understanding of sentence structure and the English language by familiarizing yourself with these labels.

Open and Closed Word Classes

The parts of speech are commonly divided into open classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) and closed classes (pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles/determiners, and interjections). The idea is that open classes can be altered and added to as language develops and closed classes are pretty much set in stone. For example, new nouns are created every day, but conjunctions never change.

In contemporary linguistics, the label part of speech has generally been discarded in favor of the term word class or syntactic category. These terms make words easier to qualify objectively based on word construction rather than context. Within word classes, there is the lexical or open class and the function or closed class.

Read about each part of speech below and get started practicing identifying each.

Noun

Nouns are a person, place, thing, or idea. They can take on a myriad of roles in a sentence, from the subject of it all to the object of an action. They are capitalized when they’re the official name of something or someone, called proper nouns in these cases. Examples: pirate, Caribbean, ship, freedom, Captain Jack Sparrow.

Pronoun

Pronouns stand in for nouns in a sentence. They are more generic versions of nouns that refer only to people. Examples:​ I, you, he, she, it, ours, them, who, which, anybody, ourselves.

Verb

Verbs are action words that tell what happens in a sentence. They can also show a sentence subject’s state of being (is, was). Verbs change form based on tense (present, past) and count distinction (singular or plural). Examples: sing, dance, believes, seemed, finish, eat, drink, be, became

Adjective

Adjectives describe nouns and pronouns. They specify which one, how much, what kind, and more. Adjectives allow readers and listeners to use their senses to imagine something more clearly. Examples: hot, lazy, funny, unique, bright, beautiful, poor, smooth.

Adverb

Adverbs describe verbs, adjectives, and even other adverbs. They specify when, where, how, and why something happened and to what extent or how often. Examples: softly, lazily, often, only, hopefully, softly, sometimes.

Preposition

Prepositions show spacial, temporal, and role relations between a noun or pronoun and the other words in a sentence. They come at the start of a prepositional phrase, which contains a preposition and its object. Examples: up, over, against, by, for, into, close to, out of, apart from.

Conjunction

Conjunctions join words, phrases, and clauses in a sentence. There are coordinating, subordinating, and correlative conjunctions. Examples: and, but, or, so, yet, with.

Articles and Determiners

Articles and determiners function like adjectives by modifying nouns, but they are different than adjectives in that they are necessary for a sentence to have proper syntax. Articles and determiners specify and identify nouns, and there are indefinite and definite articles. Examples: articles: a, an, the; determiners: these, that, those, enough, much, few, which, what.

Some traditional grammars have treated articles as a distinct part of speech. Modern grammars, however, more often include articles in the category of determiners, which identify or quantify a noun. Even though they modify nouns like adjectives, articles are different in that they are essential to the proper syntax of a sentence, just as determiners are necessary to convey the meaning of a sentence, while adjectives are optional.

Interjection

Interjections are expressions that can stand on their own or be contained within sentences. These words and phrases often carry strong emotions and convey reactions. Examples: ah, whoops, ouch, yabba dabba do!

How to Determine the Part of Speech

Only interjections (Hooray!) have a habit of standing alone; every other part of speech must be contained within a sentence and some are even required in sentences (nouns and verbs). Other parts of speech come in many varieties and may appear just about anywhere in a sentence.

To know for sure what part of speech a word falls into, look not only at the word itself but also at its meaning, position, and use in a sentence.

For example, in the first sentence below, work functions as a noun; in the second sentence, a verb; and in the third sentence, an adjective:

• Bosco showed up for work two hours late.
  • The noun work is the thing Bosco shows up for.
• He will have to work until midnight.
  • The verb work is the action he must perform.
• His work permit expires next month.
  • The attributive noun [or converted adjective] work modifies the noun permit.

Learning the names and uses of the basic parts of speech is just one way to understand how sentences are constructed.

Dissecting Basic Sentences

To form a basic complete sentence, you only need two elements: a noun (or pronoun standing in for a noun) and a verb. The noun acts as a subject and the verb, by telling what action the subject is taking, acts as the predicate. 

• Birds fly.

In the short sentence above, birds is the noun and fly is the verb. The sentence makes sense and gets the point across.

You can have a sentence with just one word without breaking any sentence formation rules. The short sentence below is complete because it’s a command to an understood «you».

• Go!

Here, the pronoun, standing in for a noun, is implied and acts as the subject. The sentence is really saying, «(You) go!»

Constructing More Complex Sentences

Use more parts of speech to add additional information about what’s happening in a sentence to make it more complex. Take the first sentence from above, for example, and incorporate more information about how and why birds fly.

• Birds fly when migrating before winter.

Birds and fly remain the noun and the verb, but now there is more description. 

When is an adverb that modifies the verb fly. The word before is a little tricky because it can be either a conjunction, preposition, or adverb depending on the context. In this case, it’s a preposition because it’s followed by a noun. This preposition begins an adverbial phrase of time (before winter) that answers the question of when the birds migrate. Before is not a conjunction because it does not connect two clauses.

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering what part of speech a word is, you’re not alone. In this lesson, we’ll explore how to answer that question as well as why that answer can seem a bit confusing. You’ll also find a quiz at the bottom of the page so that you can test yourself, along with a free PDF download. Jackpot!

Pop quiz, hot shot! Let’s say you’re at the grocery store deciding between chunky and creamy peanut butter (tough choice) when someone walks up to you and asks, «What part of speech is the word love?»

Obviously, the first thing to do is run away from this person. But then, your mind might linger on that question, and you might start to wonder Hmm … what part of speech is the word love anyway?

At that point, you would probably think of some example sentences to figure it out.

I love peanut butter. 

From this sentence, you might conclude that love is a verb since you know that verbs express action, and love is showing an action in this sentence.

You wouldn’t be wrong, but then you might think of this sentence:

Love for peanut butter brought me to the store today. 

Wait a minute! Here, love is a noun. It’s an idea, and it’s the subject of the sentence. What’s the deal? How can love be a verb and a noun?

Here’s a secret about the parts of speech that many people don’t realize: 

Many words can function as more than one part of speech.

They will only be doing one part-of-speech job at a time, though. In our example sentences above, we can see that love can be a verb and a noun, and we can also see that it’s doing just one of those jobs in each sentence.

How can you figure out what part(s) of speech a word can be, and how will you know what the word is acting as in any given sentence?

The first thing to do is to study the parts of speech and understand how they work. 

Here’s what you can do after you have a sense of what the parts of speech are and how they work:

Let’s look at two examples of words acting as different parts of speech.

We’ll look at the words for and iron, and we’ll see them acting as different parts of speech. We’ll also take a peek at what the dictionary says for each word. 

What part of speech are the words in bold?

For

I asked for pie. (preposition)

I cried, for I knew that the pie was gone. (conjunction)

Iron

Where is the iron? (noun)

Please iron my shirt. (verb)

Test Yourself

I. Label the Parts of Speech

Directions: Name the part of speech for the underlined word in each sentence. Use a dictionary if you need one. For extra credit, diagram the sentences. Scroll down to see the answers.

II. Write Your Own Sentences

Directions: Write your own sentences using the words below. Make sure the word is being used as the part of speech indicated on the left side. Underline the word in your sentence. The first one is done for you. Feel free to use a dictionary!

1. Drive

Noun: The long drive through the countryside lifted my spirits.

Verb: I always drive within the speed limit.

2. Baby

Noun: ___________________________________

Adjective: ________________________________

Verb: ___________________________________

3. Up

Preposition: ________________________________

Adverb: ___________________________________

Answers

I. Label the Parts of Speech

* The sentence diagrams for 4, 5, 9, and 10 are available in the downloadable version of this lesson.

Answers for II. Write Your Own Sentences are also available in the free, downloadable version of this lesson.

Would you like to see another example of this concept? Let’s look at how the word balance can be a noun or a verb, and how it can help you think about your life.

Every word is a part of speech, each playing a specific role in a sentence. There are 8 different parts of speech including noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. Each word in a sentence plays a vital role in conveying the meaning and intent of the sentence.

What is Part of Speech?

The English language has thousands of words and every word has some function to perform. Some words are there to show action, some to join, and some to name something. And together, all the functions performed by words in the English language fall under Parts of speech.           
 

Parts of Speech Definition

The parts of speech are the “traditional grammatical categories to which words are assigned in accordance with their syntactic functions, such as noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and so on.” In other words, they refer to the different roles that words can play in a sentence and how they relate to one another based on grammar and syntax.

Parts of Speech Table

Parts of Speech Examples with Sentences

Noun

Examples: Luggage, Cattle.

Sentence:  Never leave your luggage unattended.

In some places, cattle are fed barely.

Pronoun

Examples: who, either, themselves

Sentence: I know a man who plays the guitar very well.

Either of the two cars is for sale.

They enjoyed themselves at the party.

Adjective

Examples: kind, moving, wounder.

Sentence: 

She is a kind person.

Boarding a moving bus can be dangerous.

Never poke a wounded animal.

Verb

Examples: Praise, Hate, Punish

Sentence: She always praises her friends.

I don’t hate anybody.

The boy has been punished by his teacher

Adverb

Examples: Always, enough, immediately

Sentence: we should always help each other.

We should be wise enough to understand what is good for us.

We should leave bad habits immediately.

Preposition

Examples: Off, Below, From. to

Sentence: 

He plunged off the cliff

I live below the 9th floor.

I travel daily from Delhi to Noida.

Conjunction

Examples: whereas, as well as, so, 

Sentence: The new software is fairly simple whereas the old one was a bit complicated.

The finance company is not performing well as well as some of its competitors.

He was ready so he may come. 

Interjection

Examples: oops! whoa! phew! 

Sentence: Oops! I forgot to mention her name.

Whoa! you drive fast. 

Phew! That was close call, we had a narrow escape.

Parts of Speech Quiz

Choose the correct Parts of Speech of the BOLD word from the following questions.

1. Let us play, Shall We?

       a. Conjunction

       b. Pronoun

       c. Verb

2.  It is a good practice to arrange books on shelves.

      a. Verb

      b. Noun

      c. Adjective

3. Whose books are these?

      a. Pronoun

     b. Preposition

     c. verb

4.  Father, please get me that toy. 

     a. Pronoun

     b. Adverb

     c. Adjective

5.  His mentality is rather obnoxious.

     a. Adverb

     b. Adjective

     c. Noun

6.  He is the guy whose money got stolen.

      a. Pronoun

      b. Conjunction

      c. Adjective

7. I will have finished my semester by the end of this year.

      a. Interjection

      b. Conjunction

      c. Preposition

8. Bingo! That’s the one I have been looking for

    a. Interjection

     b. Conjunction

     c. Preposition

Quiz Answers

1. c,  2. b,  3. a,  4. c,  5. a,  6. b,  7. c,  8. a

FAQs on Parts of Speech

Q1. What are Parts of Speech?

Ans. A word is assigned to a category as per its function, and those categories are together known as Parts of Speech.

Q2. What are the 8 Parts of Speech?

Ans. Noun, Pronoun, Adjective, Verb, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction, Interjection.

Q3. How many Parts of Speech are there?

Ans. There are a total of 8 parts of Speech.

Q4. What Part of Speech is “our”?

Ans. Adjective. Eg. Our car.

Q5. What Part of Speech is “Quickly”?

Ans. Adverb. let us understand it with this example – Milk sours quickly in warm weather.