What Part of Speech is “AND”

The word “and” is a very common English word, which is almost always used as a conjunction. However, in some cases, the word can also be used as a noun.

  1. Conjunction

The word “and” is considered as a conjunction because it can be used to combine words, phrases, or clauses. Furthermore, it can also serve as a joiner for sentences which are meant to be presented jointly and together. For example, in the sentence below:

It was getting dark already and they weren’t home yet.

The conjunction “and” connects the sentences “It was getting dark already” and “they weren’t home yet” to form a compound sentence.

Definition:

a. used to join words or groups of words

  • Example:
  • Writing is my bread and butter at the moment.

 

b. used as a function word to join one finite verb

  • Example:
  • Come and get me.

 

c. used to connect words of the same part of speech, clauses, or sentences that are to be taken jointly

  • Example:
  • What you say and what you do are contradicting.

 

  1. Noun

The word “AND” in all caps is also considered as a noun in the field of computer logic. Take for example the sentence:

The symbol for AND operation is a single dot.

In that sentence, the word “AND” is not used as a conjunction, but rather as a noun (a type of binary operation).

Definition:

a. a Boolean operator that gives the value one if and only if all the operands are one, and otherwise has a value of zero

  • Example:
  • AND gates are basic logic gates.