An adverb is a part of speech that changes the meaning of verbs or any part of speech other than nouns (modifiers of nouns are primarily adjectives and determiners). Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives (including numbers), clauses, sentences, and other adverbs.

Adverbs typically answer questions such as how?, in what way?, when?, where?, and to what extent?. This function is called the adverbial function, and is realized not just by single words (i.e., adverbs) but by adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses.

Adverbs are words like yesterday, now, soon, and suddenly. An adverb usually modifies a verb or a verb phrase. It provides information about the manner, place, time, frequency, certainty, or other circumstances of the activity denoted by the verb or verb phrase.

Adverbs can also modify adjectives and other adverbs.

In English, adverbs of manner (answering the question how?) are often formed by adding -ly to adjectives. For example, great yields greatly, and beautiful yields beautifully. There are also adverbs that do not end with -ly, such as hard in "Asiya worked hard to help her family", or well in "My sister performed well in the examination." Note that some words that end in -ly, such as friendly and lovely, are not adverbs, but adjectives, in which case the root word is usually a noun. There are also underived adjectives that end in -ly, such as holy and silly.

Philip Grant Anderson OAM (born 12 March 1958) is an Australian former professional racing cyclist who was the first non-European to wear the yellow jersey of the Tour de France.

Phil Anderson was born in London but moved to Melbourne, Australia, when he was young. He grew up in the suburb of Kew and graduated from Trinity Grammar School in 1975. He first raced with Hawthorn Cycling Club, where Allan Peiper, another future professional, was also a member. Peiper said: "Phil went to a private school and joined the club with his mate, Peter Darbyshire. My best friend was Tom Sawyer, later a six-day racer in Europe, and we were the two rough nuts, while Phil and Darbs were the two upper-class boys".

Anderson, who had a reputation as an amateur for crashing, won the Tour of New Zealand in 1977 and the Australian team time-trial championship at Brisbane in 1978. In that year he also won the Commonwealth Games road race in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He was 19.

He moved to France in 1979 to join the ACBB, a club at Boulogne-Billancourt in the suburbs of Paris with a reputation of placing riders in professional teams, particularly Peugeot. Whilst he was with the ACBB he lived and raced alongside Robert Millar and Mark Bell. That season he won the Tour de l'Essonne, the Tour de l'Hérault and the amateur version of the unofficial world time-trial championship, the Grand Prix des Nations, in Cannes.