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Glite Dictionary
grammatical category

grammatical category

5.7
A group of words that share grammar features like tense or number
  • noun
  • /ˈɡræmətɪkəl ˈkætəɡəri/
  • Specialized
translation icon : categoría gramatical
  • Understanding grammatical categories is essential for mastering a new language.

Examples

  • The teacher explained that adjectives belong to their own grammatical category in the sentence.

  • These differences occurred principally among the grammatical categories.

    Blog text (32)

  • Would such a language be reluctant to permit several lexical items belonging to the same grammatical category to share a common root?

    Academic text (1995)

  • Despite the grammatical categories, however, it is quite clear that the book deals with what we would normally call "one and the same person" at different periods of his/her life.

    Academic text (1992)

  • In English, nouns and verbs are two different grammatical categories that help structure sentences.

Synonyms

part of speech
vsgrammatical category
  • Specialized
1 3.5

A class of words like noun, verb, or adjective

focuses on shared grammatical properties rather than traditional naming
syntactic category
vsgrammatical category
  • Specialized
7.4

A group of words that work the same in a sentence, like noun or verb

is the general label for such classes across grammar descriptions
word class
vsgrammatical category
3.9

A group of words with the same role in a sentence, like noun or verb

covers grouping by shared grammatical properties beyond simple examples
form class
vsgrammatical category
  • Specialized
6.9

A group of words that do the same job in grammar, like a noun or verb

is the broader class concept defined by shared grammatical properties
major form class
vsgrammatical category
  • Specialized
7.7

A main group of words like nouns, verbs, and adjectives that show a word's role in a sentence

is the neutral class term without stressing main or tradition

Surface Forms

grammatical category singular
grammatical categories plural

Morphology

grammatical + category

The meaning 'a class of words or forms distinguished by shared grammatical properties' is directly and transparently derivable from combining 'grammatical' (pertaining to language structure) with 'category' (a group sharing features). This compositional noun phrase follows regular word-formation and cross-linguistic patterns, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Grammatical category comes from the simple image of putting words into labeled boxes because they share the same grammar, with grammatical meaning 'about grammar' and category meaning 'a group'. So it refers to a 'class of words' that 'behave the same' in sentences.