KS2 Grammar Terms Glossary

Grammar Terms A–Z

KS2 GPS — 51 terms

Active voice

A sentence where the subject performs the action.

e.g. The cat chased the mouse.

Adjective

A word that describes a noun.

e.g. The tall building.

Adverb

A word that modifies a verb, adjective or other adverb.

e.g. She ran quickly.

Adverbial

A word, phrase or clause that acts like an adverb, telling you how, when, where or why.

e.g. After lunch, we played outside.

Antonym

A word that means the opposite of another word.

e.g. hot / cold

Apostrophe

A punctuation mark used to show possession or to mark omitted letters (contractions).

e.g. the dog's bone; can't

Article

A type of determiner: "a", "an" or "the".

e.g. A cat sat on the mat.

Clause

A group of words containing a subject and a verb.

e.g. The sun shone brightly.

Cohesion

The way ideas are linked across a text using pronouns, conjunctions, adverbials and repetition.

e.g. First... Then... Finally...

Conjunction (coordinating)

A word that joins two equal clauses or words: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.

e.g. I was tired but I kept going.

Conjunction (subordinating)

A word that introduces a subordinate clause: because, although, when, if, until, while.

e.g. We stayed inside because it was raining.

Contraction

A shortened form of one or two words, with an apostrophe replacing the missing letters.

e.g. do not → don't

Determiner

A word that comes before a noun to show which one or how many: a, the, this, some, every.

e.g. Those three dogs.

Ellipsis

The omission of words from a sentence, shown by three dots (...) or understood from context.

e.g. She wanted to go but he didn’t [want to go].

Fronted adverbial

An adverbial placed at the start of a sentence, followed by a comma.

e.g. Without a sound, the fox crept closer.

Homophone

A word that sounds the same as another word but has a different meaning and often different spelling.

e.g. there / their / they’re

Hyphen

A punctuation mark used to join words together or to avoid ambiguity.

e.g. man-eating shark vs man eating shark

Imperative

A sentence that gives a command or instruction. The verb is in the imperative form.

e.g. Sit down. Close the door.

Infinitive

The base form of a verb, often preceded by "to".

e.g. to run, to be, to think

Main clause

A clause that makes sense on its own and can stand as a complete sentence.

e.g. The dog barked loudly.

Modal verb

A verb that shows possibility, ability, permission or obligation: can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, must.

e.g. You should finish your homework.

Noun (common)

A word for a general person, place or thing (not capitalised).

e.g. dog, city, table

Noun (proper)

A word for a specific person, place or thing (capitalised).

e.g. London, Tuesday, Mrs Smith

Noun (abstract)

A noun for something you cannot see or touch — an idea, quality or state.

e.g. happiness, freedom, courage

Noun (collective)

A noun for a group of people, animals or things.

e.g. a flock of birds, a team of players

Object

The noun or pronoun that receives the action of the verb.

e.g. She kicked the ball. (ball = object)

Parenthesis

Extra information added to a sentence using brackets, dashes or commas.

e.g. My brother (who is ten) loves football.

Passive voice

A sentence where the subject receives the action rather than performing it.

e.g. The mouse was chased by the cat.

Past tense

A verb form showing that something has already happened.

e.g. She walked to school.

Phrase

A small group of words that does not contain a verb acting as a predicate.

e.g. the old, creaky door

Plural

More than one of something, usually formed by adding -s or -es.

e.g. dogs, boxes, children

Possessive

Showing ownership, formed with an apostrophe + s or a possessive pronoun.

e.g. the girl's book; his, hers

Prefix

A group of letters added to the beginning of a word to change its meaning.

e.g. un- + happy = unhappy

Preposition

A word that shows the relationship of a noun to another word (position, time, direction).

e.g. The cat sat under the table.

Present tense

A verb form showing something happening now or regularly.

e.g. She walks to school every day.

Pronoun (personal)

A word that replaces a noun to avoid repetition: I, you, he, she, it, we, they.

e.g. Tom was tired. He went to bed.

Pronoun (possessive)

A pronoun that shows ownership: mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs.

e.g. That book is mine.

Pronoun (relative)

A pronoun that introduces a relative clause: who, which, that, whose, whom.

e.g. The girl who won the race smiled.

Relative clause

A subordinate clause that gives more information about a noun, introduced by a relative pronoun.

e.g. The cake, which was chocolate, was delicious.

Root word

The basic word from which other words are formed by adding prefixes or suffixes.

e.g. play → replay, playful, playing

Sentence type: statement

A sentence that tells you something. Ends with a full stop.

e.g. The sky is blue.

Sentence type: question

A sentence that asks something. Ends with a question mark.

e.g. Is the sky blue?

Sentence type: command

A sentence that tells someone to do something. Can end with a full stop or exclamation mark.

e.g. Close the window.

Sentence type: exclamation

A sentence starting with "What" or "How" that expresses strong feeling. Ends with an exclamation mark.

e.g. What a beautiful day!

Subject

The person or thing performing the action in a sentence.

e.g. The dog barked. (dog = subject)

Subjunctive

A verb form used to express wishes, demands or hypothetical situations.

e.g. If I were you, I would go.

Subordinate clause

A clause that cannot stand alone as a sentence and adds extra information to the main clause.

e.g. Although it rained, we went out.

Suffix

A group of letters added to the end of a word to change its meaning or word class.

e.g. hope + -ful = hopeful

Synonym

A word that means the same or nearly the same as another word.

e.g. happy / joyful

Tense

The form of a verb that shows when the action happens (past, present or future).

e.g. walked (past), walks (present), will walk (future)

Verb

A word that describes an action, state or occurrence.

e.g. run, is, think, believe