Adnoun

Part of speech: adjective, noun

Definitions

1. A word, usually an adjective, that describes or qualifies a noun in a sentence
2. Any term whose function is to modify a noun, such as an attributive adjective
3. A modifying word or phrase that gives more information about the noun it accompanies

Etymology: "Adnoun" is a grammatical term for a word that modifies a noun, and it is a deliberately built piece of terminology rather than a word that grew up in everyday speech. It combines the Latin preposition "ad", meaning "to" or "toward", with the English word "noun", so the name literally points a modifier toward the noun it describes. The formation follows the same pattern as older grammatical coinages that borrow a Latin prefix to name a relationship between parts of speech. Because the term is a technical label, its history is essentially the history of the classification it names. Its meaning stays fixed: an adnoun is a word such as an adjective or a determiner that qualifies a noun, and the word was built to make that category easy to refer to in grammatical discussion.

Synonyms: adjective