Gram. [a. Fr. adverbe, ad. L. adverbium, f. ad to + verbum word, verb; according to Priscian ‘cujus significatio verbis adjicitur’; a literal rendering of Gr. ἐπίρρημα, something additional to the predication.] Name of one of the Parts of Speech: a word used to express the attribute of an attribute; which expresses any relation of place, time, circumstance, causality, manner, or degree, or which modifies or limits an attribute, or predicate, or their modification; a word that modifies or qualifies an adjective, verb, or other adverb. Also used attrib.
1530. Palsgr., 800. It is harde to a lerner to discerne the difference bytwene an adverbe and the other partes of spetche.
1620. Ford, Linea Vitæ (1843), 64. This man not only liues but liues well, remembring alwayes the old adage, that ‘God is the rewarder of aduerbes not of nownes.’
c. 1620. A. Hume, Orthogr. Brit. Tong. (1865), 32. An adverb is a word adhering mast commonlie with a verb.
1827. Coleridge, Table Talk, 38. Modify the verb by the noun, that is, by being, and you have the Adverb.
1873. R. Morris, Eng. Accid., xiv. § 310. Adverbs are mostly either abbreviations of words (or phrases) belonging to other parts of speech, or particular cases of nouns and pronouns. Ibid., ix. § 63. Many relational adverbs are formed from demonstrative pronouns, as he-re, hi-ther, whe-n.
1879. Whitney, Sanskr. Gram., 352. Of still more limited use, and of noun rather than adverb-value.
