grammatical

grammatical — adjective

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

1.adjectiveB2
Definition

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

Example

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

Common collocations
  • grammatical rules
  • grammatical structure
  • grammatical analysis
  • grammatical errors
  • grammatical features
  • grammatical terminology
Synonyms
  • linguistic

    broader; covers all aspects of language, not just grammar

  • syntactic

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

Usage Note

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).

Common Mistakes

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.adjectiveB2
Definition

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.

Example

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.

Common collocations
  • perfectly grammatical
  • fully grammatical
  • grammatical sentence
  • grammatical utterance
  • grammatical email
Synonyms
  • correct

    general; covers any kind of accuracy, not just grammar

  • well-formed

    technical term in linguistics for structures that follow all grammar rules

Antonyms
  • ungrammatical

    direct opposite; breaks one or more grammar rules

  • incorrect

    broader; can refer to factual or stylistic errors too

Usage Note

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').

Common Mistakes

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.

Common collocations

Nouns

  • grammatical rules
  • grammatical structure
  • grammatical errors
  • grammatical sentence
  • grammatical analysis
  • grammatical terms

Adverbs

  • perfectly grammatical
  • fully grammatical
  • strictly grammatical
  • purely grammatical

Phrases

  • make a grammatical error
  • be grammatical in form
  • grammatical in structure