English Key Terms Flashcards
adjective
Word or phrase that describes or modifies a noun. Ex: frozen, ridiculous, excitable.
adverb
Word or phrase that describes or modifies an adjective, verb, or other adverb. Ex: easily, quickly, triumphantly.
Adverbs modifying adjectives : “extremely happy,” “very tired,” “quite interesting,”Adverbs that modify adverbs.“very quickly” (where “very” modifies “quickly”), “quite often” (where “quite” modifies “often”), “extremely slowly” (where “extremely” modifies “slowly”). Adverb that modifies a verb.“The dog barked loudly.” - “Loudly” describes how the dog barked.
“She arrived early.” - “Early” tells when she arrived.
“He walked steadily.” - “Steadily” explains the manner of his walking.
affix
Letters placed at the beginning or end of a word or word part to modify its meaning.
apostrophe
Punctuation mark that denotes possessive case or omission of letters. article. Word ( a, an, or the) that refers to a noun.
brainstorming
Discussing as a group to create an idea or solve a problem.
citation
A strictly formatted line of text that provides a source reference.
colloquialism
An informal word or phrase. Ex: Ain’t: A contraction of “is not” that’s commonly used in American English
Ballpark: Something that’s close but not exact
comma
Punctuation marks used to separate parts of sentences.
complement
Sentence part that gives more information about a subject or object. Ex: “Math is fun.” Math is the subject, “is” constitutes the simple predicate, fun is the complement because it completes the sentence.
complex sentence
Sentence that contains an independent clause and at least one dependent clause.
compound sentence
Sentence that contains at least two independent clauses.
conjunction
A connecting word. Ex: and, so, but
context
Surrounding words or ideas within a sentence or passage that affect the meaning of a word and influence how it is understood.
coordinate adjectives
Two equally weighted adjectives that describe the same noun and require a comma between them. Ex: “The Tigris River ends near the Persian Gulf in a wide, swampy delta”
“Smart, funny Jaimie quickly advanced as a class leader”
“I have baked a flaky, sticky, delicious pastry”
dependent clause
A group of words that includes a subject and verb but cannot stand alone as a complete sentence because it does not express a complete thought.
derivation
Determining the origin of a word.
derivational suffix
A suffix that forms a new word with a new meaning when added.
-er: Used to create a noun that means “a person who does a verb”. For example, “teacher” comes from the verb “teach”.
-y: Used to indicate a characteristic. For example, “greasy”, “nerdy”, and “smelly” all end in “-y”.
-ful: Used to indicate that something is full of something else. For example, “tasteful”, “joyful”, and “fearful” all end in “-ful”.
-ness: Used to indicate a state or quality. For example, “kindness”, “seriousness”, and “happiness” all end in “-ness
diction
The style of writing determined by word choice.
draft
An unfinished version of a text.
end marks
Punctuation marks that end sentences: period, question mark, and exclamation mark.
exclamation mark
End mark that denotes strong feeling.
formal
A style that follows conventional rules.
fragment
An incomplete sentence
genre
A group of related writings or other media.
homographs
Words that are spelled the same, such as “bass” ( a fish) and bass (musical instrument), but have different meanings and may be pronounced differently.
homophones
Words that sound the same, such as “new” and “knew” but have different meanings and are spelled differently.
imperative sentence
A complete sentence that conveys a command, instruction, or request and has the implied or understood subject, “you.” Ex: Finish your homework!
independent clause
A group of words that includes a subject and predicate and can stand alone as a complete sentence because it expresses a complete thought.
indirect object
The person or thing to whom or which something is done. Ex: “He left me a ticket at the information desk.” For whom was the ticket left? Me.
inflection
How a word is spoken to modify its tone or meaning. An example of an inflection in English is adding the suffix “-s” to a noun to make it plural, like changing “cat” to “cats” - the “-s” is the inflection that indicates plurality.
inflectional suffix
In English, common inflectional suffixes include “-s” (plural), “-ed” (past tense), “-ing” (present participle), and “-‘s” (possessive).
informal
A style that is relaxed and unofficial.
interjection
A word or phrase that represents a short burst of emotion. Ex: Ouch!
jargon
Words used in a specific profession or discipline. Ex: Medical: “Aneurysm” (a medical professional would understand this, but the average person might not)
Tech: “bandwidth” (referring to internet speed)
Legal: “voir dire” (a legal process of questioning potential jurors)
Marketing: “customer acquisition cost” (CAC)
mind mapping
Visually diagramming ideas around a central concept.
modifier
A word or group of words that provide description for another word. Ex:”The big dog barked loudly,” the word “big” is a modifier because it describes the noun “dog” by specifying its size; essentially, it modifies the noun “dog” to give more detail about it.
mood
How the elements in a text, such as word choice make the reader feel
noun
a person, place, thing or idea.Ex: brother, school, computer, philosophy.
object/direct object
A word or group of words that receive the action of a verb.
“The dog chased the cat,” “the cat” is the direct object; it is the thing being chased by the dog (the subject) and directly receives the action of the verb “chased.”She bought a new dress.” (Direct object: “a new dress”)
“He ate the pizza.” (Direct object: “the pizza”)
“The teacher explained the lesson.” (Direct object: “the lesson
She bought a new dress.” (Direct object: “a new dress”)
“He ate the pizza.” (Direct object: “the pizza”)
“The teacher explained the lesson.” (Direct object: “the lesson
Oxford Comma
The comma before the “and” in a simple series of items.
parts of speech
Eight categories for classifying words, adjective, adverb, conjunction, interjection, noun, preposition, pronoun, verb.
perfective
A verb tense indicating that the action described has been completed. Ex: “I watched television last night”
“My sister visited Paris last summer”
“She has eaten”
period
End mark that denotes the end of a standard sentence.
phrase
A group of words that work together as a unit. Ex: “the big red ball” - it’s a group of words that function together but doesn’t have a subject and verb on its own
plural
More than one item. Ending in “s” or “es.” Ex: Cats: The plural of “cat”
predicate
The part of a sentence that explains what the subject does or is like. Ex: I am studying. Subject= I; predicate= am studying.
prefix
An affix that appears at the beginning of a word
preposition
A word that describes relationships between other words. Ex: on, at, to, by, with, for, under, between, above, and through.
progressive
A verb tense indicating that the action described is currently happening.
pronoun
A word that takes the place of a noun.Ex: she, he, they, we
pronoun-antecedent agreement
Matching like numbers of pronouns and their antecedents. Ex: “The girls found their new shoes at the mall”
“Chelsey finished her presentation”
quotation marks
Punctuation marks that denote a spoken or other quoted text.
register
Degree of formality in a text.
root
A word part to which an affix can be attached.
run-on sentence
A sentence with extra parts that are not joined properly by the correct conjunction or punctuation.
Ex: “I love to cook, I could spend all day in the kitchen.”
“She went to the store, she bought groceries.”
It should be separated into two sentences or joined with a coordinating conjunction like “and” with a comma
second person
A narrative mode that addresses the reader as “you.”
simple sentence
Sentence that contains only one idea or independent clause and uses only an end mark.
slang
Informal language usually tied to a specific group of people.
stream-of-consciousness writing
A narrative device that mimics interior monologue. It mimics the natural flow of thoughts, jumping between ideas seemingly without order or logical progression. “The coffee is too hot, but I need the caffeine, gotta get to work, did I lock the door? Wait, what was I thinking about? Oh yeah, that email from the boss, maybe I should just call in sick today.”
subject
The main noun of a sentence that is doing or being.
subject-verb agreement
Matching like numbers of subjects and verbs: singular with singular, plural with plural.
Suffix, supporting detail, synonyms, tense, tone, topic sentence, transition words, verb.
suffix- An affix that appears at the end of a word.
supporting detail- that supports the main idea by answering, who, what, where, when, or why.
synonyms- Words with identical or similar meanings.
tense- Refers to when an action occurs: past, present, future.
Tone- An authors implied or explicit attitude toward a topic.
Topic sentence- The sentence that summarizes the main idea of a text or paragraph.
Transition words- Words that link or introduce ideas.
Verb- A word that describes an action or state of being.
