Glossary of Grammar Terms: What It Is and How To Use It

Do you know what grammar glossaries are? This article will provide you with all of the information you need on glossaries, including its definition, usage, example sentences, and more!

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What is a grammar glossary?

According to Word Sense, a glossary is a list of words accompanied by their definitions. You may be wondering how this is different from a dictionary. Well, a glossary is different from a dictionary in that it consists of a list of terms in a particular field or domain of knowledge. A glossary could even be used at the end of a fiction book to provide definitions about terms that may be new to the reader in the book. A grammatical glossary, or a grammar glossary, is a glossary that focuses on the field of grammar terms. Learning grammatical terms when English is a second language can be very challenging. However, a glossary is a great point of reference to try and see what terms you do and do not know.

Many different languages also contain words that mean glossary. You may notice that some of these translations of glossary look and sound similar to one another. These are called cognates, which are words and phrases in different languages that likely have the same root or language of origin, causing them to sound the same. The below list of translations of glossary is provided by Word Sense

  •  Albanian: fjalorth‎ (masc.)
  •  German: Glossar‎ (neut.)
  •  Spanish: glosario‎ (masc.)
  •  Finnish: sanasto‎; asiasanasto‎
  •  Greek: γλωσσάριο‎ (neut.)
  •  Nynorsk: ordliste‎ (fem.)
  •  Czech: slovník pojmů‎ (masc.), slovníček pojmů‎ (masc.), glosář‎ (masc.)
  •  Georgian: გლოსარიუმი‎
  •  Hungarian: szójegyzék‎
  •  Portuguese: glossário‎ (masc.)
  •  Danish: glosar‎, glossar‎, glosarium‎, glossarium‎, glosebog‎, ordliste‎, termliste‎, gloseliste‎, glossehæfte‎,
  •  Icelandic: orðasafn‎ (neut.)
  •  Dutch: glossarium‎ (neut.)
  •  Esperanto: glosaro‎
  •  Swedish: ordförklaring‎
  •  Japanese: 用語集‎ (ようごしゅう, yōgoshū), 語彙‎ (ごい, goi), グロッサリー‎ (gurossarī)
  •  Romansch: glossari‎ (masc.)
  •  Irish: foclóirín‎ (masc.)
  •  Norwegian: glossar‎ (neut.)
  •  Bulgarian: речник‎ (masc.), речниково гнездо‎ (neut.)
  •  Russian: глосса́рий‎ (masc.), слова́рь‎ (masc.)
  •  Norman: glossaithe‎ (masc.)
  •  Turkish: lügatçe‎
  •  Macedonian: поимник‎
  •  Mandarin: 詞匯表‎ or 詞彙表‎, 词汇表‎ (cíhuìbiǎo), 詞匯‎ or 詞彙‎, 词汇‎ (cíhuì)
  •  Tagalog: talaturingan‎, talahuluganan‎
  •  Polish: glosariusz‎ (masc.)
  •  Bokmål: ordliste‎ (masc.) (f)
  •  French: glossaire‎
  •  Italian: glossario‎ (masc.)

Below are examples of the word glossary being used in a sentence, also from Word Sense:

  • “Blessed is this handy glossary.” Cosmopolitan, 6 September 2019 
  • “Wondering what the writ is? Need to know about the national register of electors? Consult our Canadian federal election glossary for more information about the terms you’ll come across during the campaign.” CBC, 12 September 2019
  • “As the coronavirus continues to dominate headlines around the world, here is a glossary of common words and terms used in connection with the disease.” RTE, 12 March 2020 
  • “Commentary: This week on Love Syncs, an official glossary of the phrases to avoid on dating apps.” CNET, 27 February 2020
  • “While 2018 was the year Shane Ross expanded his glorious glossary of gaffes into football, the hapless minister, in time, might be thanked for contributing to the game’s rehabilitation.” Independent.ie, 1 January 2019 
  • “As coronavirus continues to dominate headlines around the world, here is a glossary of common words and terms that have become part of life as we know it.” Independent.ie, 19 April 2020

What are examples of a glossary?

Grammar glossaries can be used in many different contexts in the English language. Trying to use a word or grammatical technique in a sentence is one of the best ways to memorize what it is, but you can also try making flashcards or quizzes that test your knowledge. Try using this term of the day in a sentence today! Below are a couple of examples of numbers that can help get you started incorporating this tool into your everyday use.  Take a look at this glossary and see which of these grammatical categories you know!!

There are many different grammatical techniques and devices that you might see when you are reading prose or poetry. It is important to recognize these terms because they are always used for some purpose. Knowing these devices can help readers understand the author’s deeper meaning and why they are using such a device. Take a look at the below list of grammatical devices from OED and see how many you know! Then try researching ones that are unfamiliar to you. 

  • imperative mood
  •  feminine
  •  indefinite
  •  postmodify | postmodifier
  •  neuter
  •  capital letter
  •  clause
  •  direct question
  •  tense
  •  gerund
  •  passive infinitive
  •  pronoun (pron.)
  •  suffix
  •  participial adjective
  •  positive
  •  morpheme
  •  past tense
  •  to-infinitive
  •  unmarked genitive
  •  prepositional phrase
  •  transitive
  •  gender
  •  parasynthetic
  •  dative
  •  infinitive
  •  demonstrative
  •  exclamation mark
  •  locative
  •  non-referential
  •  case
  •  sentence adverb |sentence adverbial
  •  similative
  •  indirect object
  •  combination
  •  present participle
  •  irregular verb
  •  ellipsis | elliptical
  •  active
  •  zero
  •  relative pronoun
  •  nominal relative | nominal 
  •  part of speech
  •  compound | compounding
  •  parenthetical | parenthetically
  •  subordinate conjunction
  •  question mark
  •  adverbial | adverbially
  •  intensifier
  •  mood
  •  object | direct object | indirect object
  •  construed (const., constr.)
  •  simple
  •  intransitive
  •  preposition (prep.)
  •  passive
  •  second person
  •  construction
  •  indefinite article
  •  active voice
  •  superlative
  •  bare infinitive
  •  anticipatory
  •  collocation | collocate
  •  imperative (imper.)
  •  singular
  •   anaphoric
  •  direct object
  •  count noun
  •  complementary
  •  indirect speech
  •  possessive adjective
  •  reflexive
  •  stem
  •  plural
  •  determiner
  •  cataphoric
  •  modify | modifier
  •  appositive
  •  conditional
  •  indicative
  •  quotation marks
  •  present tense
  •  noun phrase
  •  possessive
  •  agent noun
  •  common noun
  •  copular verb | copula
  •  apposition
  •  adverb (adv.)
  •  main clause
  •  concrete noun
  •  indirect passive
  •  number
  •  double object
  •  apodosis and protasis
  •  phrase (phr.)
  •  relative
  •  combining form (comb. form)
  •  possessive case
  •  interrogative
  •  cognate object
  •  inflection | inflected | inflectional
  •  antecedent
  •  participle | past participle | present participle
  •  head
  •  special use
  •  verb (v.)
  •  periphrasis | periphrastic
  •  instrumental
  •  complement
  •  relative clause
  •  possessive pronoun
  •  that-clause
  •  pro-form
  •  filler
  •  finite
  •  phrasal verb
  •  subjunctive mood
  •  prepositional passive
  •  perfect
  •  comparative
  •  optative
  •  prefix
  •  premodify | premodifier
  •  auxiliary verb | auxiliary
  •  noun (n.)
  •  objective
  •  genitive
  •  main verb
  •  attributive
  •  concrete
  •  article
  •  progressive
  •  agree | agreement
  •  subjunctive
  •  declarative
  •  vocative
  •  predicative
  •  verbal noun
  •  predicate
  •  protasis
  •  masculine
  •  compound sentence
  •  third-person
  •  subject
  •  subjective
  •  accusative
  •  definite article
  •  adjective
  •  personal pronoun
  •  non-finite
  •  causative
  •  conjunction (conj.)
  •  base form
  •  coordinating conjunctions
  •  interjection
  •  direct speech
  •  dual
  •  subordinate clause
  •  quasi-
  •  mass noun
  •  pleonasm | pleonastic
  •  person
  •  modal verb | modal auxiliary verb | modal auxiliary
  •  abstract
  •  nominative
  •  collective noun
  •  absolute (absol.)
  •  impersonal (impers.)
  •  proper noun | proper name
  •  past participle
  •  indirect question
  •  full stop
  •  regular verb
  •  prepositional object
  •  element
  •  first person

Overall, a grammatical glossary is a list of grammar terms and their definitions.

Sources:

  1. Glossary of grammatical terms | OED 
  2. glossary: meaning, origin, translation | Word Sense 
  3. Use glossary in a sentence | The best 96 glossary sentence examples | Your Dictionary