An ajective, in grammar, is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun (called the adjective's head), giving more information about to what the noun or pronoun refers. Some examples can be seen in the box to the right. Collectively, adjectives form one of the traditional eight parts of speech, though linguists today distinguish adjectives from words such as determiners that used to be considered adjectives but that are now recognized to be different. It derives from the Latin words ad and iacere (Latin words that start with an I change to a J in English); literally, to throw to.