What is a suffix?. A suffix is a word part that is added to the end of a base word to form a new word or to change its meaning. Example: Enjoy + able = enjoyable. Each suffix has its own meaning. The suffix “able” means “capable of”. Hence enjoyable means “capable of being enjoyed”. Common […]
Homographs are words which are spelled the same but have different meanings. They usually appear as separate entries in a dictionary. Examples: The man dug a well in his compound. They worked well together. In the first sentence, the noun well means “a spring of water”. In the second sentence, the adverb well means “in a
Homophones are words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings. Example: She will buy music composed by my favourite artist. Homophones are often confused when writing by many students because of similarity in pronunciation. Examples of common homophones in English More examples of homophones Exercise Give the homophones and the meanings of
Synonyms are words that have almost the same meaning but different spelling and pronunciation. Examples: Slender – thin finish – end sick –ill Some words have several synonyms. For example, happy has such synonyms words like light-hearted, pleased, and cheerful. Synonyms help vary the writing, just like pronouns do. For example, the word happy and
Antonyms are words that have opposite meanings. Antonyms also add variety to your writing. Examples: Cold-hot heavier – lighter fearful – brave. Some words have more than one antonym. Some of these antonyms can be formed by adding a prefix to a base word. Examples: Kind – cruel, unkind like – hate, dislike Examples of common antonyms
An idiom is a phrase that has a special meaning as a whole. The meaning of an idiom is different from the meanings of its separate words. Examples: It was raining cats and dogs. The idiom raining cats and dogs does not mean that cats and dogs were falling out of the sky! It means “raining
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Some pairs of verbs confuse learners of English because their meanings are related but not the same. Others confuse them because they sound similar, but their meanings are different. Others are similar in appearance but different in meanings. The pairs meaning Present tense, Past tense, Past participle. Examples of its usage 1 Sit Set: To
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Two special kinds of adjectives are the articles and the possessive pronouns. Articles Articles are the words a, an and the. A and an are special adjectives called indefinite articles. They are used when the nouns they modify do not refer to any particular thing. Examples: A student rang the bells (no specific student) An
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Those and Then Those is an adjective if it followed by a noun. It is a pronoun if it is used alone. Examples: Those thieves are daring! (adjective modifying thieves) Those are thieves! (pronoun) Them is always a pronoun. It is used only as the object of a verb or as the object of a
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An adverb is a word that describes a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Adverb tells how, when, or where, or to what extent an action happens. Examples: HOW: The man walked quickly. WHEN: It will rain soon. WHERE: We shall meet here at 2 p.m. TO WHAT EXTENT: He is extremely rude. Other Examples: HOW,
An adjective is a word that describes or modifies a noun or a pronoun. To describe or modify means to provide additional information about nouns or pronouns. To modify further means to change something slightly. Writers and speakers modify an idea or image by choosing certain describing words, which are called adjectives. Hence, these adjectives
Most adjectives appear immediately before the nouns they are modifying e.g. Descriptive: The beautiful house belongs to my uncle. Demonstrative: That house belongs to my uncle. Numerals: Two houses were burned down. Articles: The house on fire belongs to her sister. Possessive pronouns: Their house was burned down. Predicate Adjectives Some adjectives appear after the
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A conjunction is a word that connects words or groups of words. Like prepositions, conjunctions show a relationship between the words they connect. But, unlike prepositions, conjunctions do not have objects. There are 3 main categories of conjunctions; (1) Coordinating conjunctions (2) Subordinating conjunctions (3) Correlative conjunctions Coordinating Conjunctions Coordinating conjunctions connect related words, groups
A prepositional phrase consists of a preposition, its object and any words that modify the object. Examples: The school children waited for the green light. In this sentence, the preposition is for, its object is light, and the modifier, or adjective, is green. The entire preposition phrase modifies the verb waited. Sometimes two or more nouns
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Many adverbs are formed by adding -ly to an adjective. Examples: Slow + -ly = slowly quiet + -ly = quietly Sometimes the addition of -ly to an adjective may require changing the spelling in the adjective. Examples: Easy + -ly = easily (y changes to i) Full + -ly = fully (ll changes to l). Other
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An infinitive is a verb form that usually appears with the word to before it. To is called the sign of the infinitive. Examples: To lift to eat to launch to register To is a preposition if it is followed by a noun or noun phrase, but it is a sign of the infinitive if
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We have seen that we can use adjectives to compare people, things or places. Adverbs can also be used to compare actions. And like adjectives, we use the comparative form of an adverb to compare two actions and the superlative form of an adverb to compare more than two actions. Examples: ONE ACTION: Maree swims fast.
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A noun clause is a clause which takes the place of a noun or a noun phrase. It can be used in any way that a noun is used. That is, it can act as the subject, object, object of a preposition, or predicate noun in a sentence. Just like a noun, a noun clause
A preposition is a word that shows the relationship between other words in a sentence. Examples: The cat lay under the table. The preposition under connects the verb lay with table. Under points out the relationship between lay and table. Hence a preposition is a word that links another word or word group to the
An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun that does not refer to a specific person or thing. In English, there are singular indefinite pronouns, plural indefinite and both singular and plural indefinite pronouns. Singular Indefinite Pronouns Another, anything, everybody, neither, one Anybody, each, everyone, nobody, somebody Anymore, either, everything, no one, someone. An indefinite pronoun must
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