grammatical

grammatical — adjective

1. describing the system of rules that a language uses to build correct sentences a

1.形容詞B2
釋義

describing the system of rules that a language uses to build correct sentences and phrases.

例句

Allison struggled with the grammatical rules of French because they differed from English ones.

attributive: grammatical rules / grammatical structure / grammatical analysis

The teacher circled every grammatical error in Vikram's essay before returning it.

collocation: grammatical error

同義詞
  • linguistic

    broader; covers all aspects of language, not just grammar

  • syntactic

    narrower; refers specifically to sentence structure, not morphology or usage

用法筆記

Typically used before a noun (attributive) when referring to the study or system of grammar itself, as in 'grammatical rules', 'grammatical analysis', or 'grammatical structure'. When placed after a linking verb, the meaning may drift towards sense 2 (grammatically correct).

常見錯誤

❌I made a grammatical error — I wrote "recieve" instead of "receive".
✅I made a spelling error.
💡misspelling is a spelling mistake, not a violation of grammar rules.
❌English has many grammatical rules, like putting a comma before a list.
✅English has many punctuation rules, like putting a comma before a list.
💡comma placement is punctuation, not grammar.

2. constructed or expressed in a way that follows the accepted rules of a language,

2.形容詞B2
釋義

constructed or expressed in a way that follows the accepted rules of a language, so that most native speakers would consider a sentence or phrase correct in form.

例句

Although Defne's sentence was grammatical, it sounded unnatural to the native speaker.

predicative: be + grammatical, contrasting form with naturalness

The editor checked whether every paragraph was both grammatical and easy to follow.

同義詞
  • correct

    general; covers any kind of accuracy, not just grammar

  • well-formed

    technical term in linguistics for structures that follow all grammar rules

反義詞
  • ungrammatical

    direct opposite; breaks one or more grammar rules

  • incorrect

    broader; can refer to factual or stylistic errors too

用法筆記

Used both attributively ('a grammatical sentence') and predicatively ('the sentence is grammatical'). This sense judges correctness of form, not of meaning — a sentence can be perfectly grammatical while being nonsense (e.g. 'Colourless green ideas sleep furiously').

常見錯誤

❌The sentence "The dog run fast" is not grammatical.
✅The sentence "The dog runs fast" is grammatical.
💡the error is the missing third-person -s; the corrected version follows the rules.
❌I need to make my sentence more grammatical.
✅I need to make my sentence grammatical.
💡'grammatical' is an absolute quality (either correct or not), not a gradable one.