part of speech

A part of speech is the work a word is doing in the sentence it appears in. English names eight: the noun (a person, place, thing or idea), the pronoun that stands in for one, the verb that says what the subject does or is, the adjective that describes a noun, the adverb that describes a verb, an adjective or another adverb, the preposition that links a noun to the rest of the sentence, the conjunction that joins words, phrases or clauses, and the interjection, which sits outside the sentence.

The label belongs to the use, not the word. Record is a noun in the record was signed and a verb in record the output; charge is a noun in the charge was entered and an adjective in the charge nurse; well is an adverb in she charted well and an adjective in she looks well.

So the test is always local: ask what this word is doing here. Does an article fit? Then a noun. Can a noun be swapped back in? A pronoun. Can it carry a tense? A verb. Does it answer how, when or to what degree? An adverb. Does a noun follow it? A preposition.