Limato
Adverb Checker
See the -ly adverbs and intensifiers in your text highlighted as you type — then cut the ones carrying no weight. Free, no signup.
Detection is a client-side word match, not a parser: it flags -ly adverbs plus very, quite, just, so, too, almost, always, never, often, rather, somewhat and indeed. Nothing is sent anywhere. A highlight is not a verdict — plenty of adverbs deserve to stay.
How to use the adverb checker
Paste or type up to 750 words. Two things happen at once, and only the second one leaves your browser:
- The scan is instant and local. Each -ly adverb (minus adjective look-alikes such as friendly or likely) and each common intensifier is highlighted as you type, with a count and a rate — adverbs per 100 words — so you can compare drafts. No request is made, nothing is stored.
- The rewrite is optional. Click Rewrite it tighter and the text comes back in Limato's Simplify tone: shorter sentences, plainer words. That is where padding adverbs go, because they are the first thing a plain-English rewrite drops. It is a rewrite, not a find-and-delete — read the result before you use it.
The highlight is a prompt to look, not a verdict. Half the adverbs in a good paragraph belong there. The sections below are about telling the two halves apart.
Why weak adverbs make writing weaker
Stephen King's line — "the road to hell is paved with adverbs" — and Hemingway's reputation for stripping them out get quoted so often that the advice has hardened into "never use adverbs", which is wrong. The real problem is narrower and easy to see once you know it.
A weak adverb is one propping up a word that should have been stronger in the first place. "He walked quickly" spends two words getting where "he hurried" gets in one. "Very important" is a writer telling you something matters instead of showing why. The adverb is doing the verb's job, or the adjective's, and doing it worse.
Three symptoms, in the order they show up in real drafts:
- The adverb repeats the verb. "Shouted loudly", "whispered quietly", "ran quickly" — the verb already said it.
- The adverb inflates a flat word. "Extremely good", "really big", "very tired". Nothing is added; the sentence just gets louder.
- The adverb hedges. "Basically", "actually", "honestly", "literally", "just". These are throat-clearing, and in an email they read as apology.
Cut those three and the rest of your adverbs are almost certainly fine.
"Very + adjective" — one stronger word instead
The single highest-yield edit on this page. Every one of these replaces two words with one that means more:
- very big → huge, massive
- very small → tiny, minor
- very good → excellent, outstanding
- very bad → terrible, dismal
- very important → critical, essential
- very tired → exhausted
- very angry → furious
- very happy → delighted, thrilled
- very difficult → gruelling, brutal
- very interesting → fascinating
- very sure → certain, confident
- very fast → rapid, instant
- very quiet → silent
- very expensive → steep
- very often → routinely
The same trick works on really, extremely, highly and quite. And when no single word fits, that is useful information too: it usually means the claim was vaguer than you thought.
Adverbs that are doing real work
These stay. Deleting them changes the meaning, which is the whole test:
- Time and frequency: "We ship weekly", "she never replied", "it arrived yesterday". Facts, not decoration.
- Manner that is not implied by the verb: "He answered in writing", "she signed it reluctantly". The verb alone would leave out something real.
- Degree that changes the claim: "Partly finished" and "finished" are different states. "Almost doubled" is not "doubled".
- Sentence adverbs that signal logic: "However", "instead", "therefore". They tell the reader where the argument turns.
- Legal and technical hedges you actually mean: "approximately 400 users" in a report is precision, not padding.
Quick test: delete the adverb and read the sentence. If nothing changed except the volume, it was padding. If a fact disappeared, put it back.
The intensifier habit in non-native English
Adverb overuse is heavier in non-native English than in native English, and not because of carelessness. Three specific causes we see over and over:
- A small stock of adjectives. If huge, furious and exhausted are not in your active vocabulary yet, "very big", "very angry" and "very tired" are the only route to the meaning. The intensifier is a workaround for a missing word — which is why the list above is worth learning as vocabulary, not just as an edit.
- Politeness transferred from your first language. Spanish realmente, bastante, muy; German eigentlich, wirklich; Russian вообще, просто. Softening a request with an adverb is normal there. In English it reads as uncertainty: "I would just really like to kindly ask..." makes a manager wonder whether you mean it.
- School-essay conjunctive adverbs. "Moreover", "furthermore", "consequently" in a three-line Slack message. They are correct English and completely wrong register — and they are one of the loudest ESL tells there is.
The register problem is bigger than the adverbs themselves. If that is what you are chasing, run the draft through the tone checker or read 12 ESL patterns native speakers never use.
How many adverbs is too many?
There is no official threshold, and anyone quoting one precisely is guessing. What the rate is genuinely good for is comparing your own drafts: run the text, cut the padding, run it again, watch the number fall.
As a rough orientation, edited non-fiction tends to sit in the low single digits per 100 words, and first drafts of emails come in noticeably higher. If your text is above that band, the culprit is almost always very, really, just and actually rather than the -ly words. Fiction and speech legitimately run higher.
Treat the count as a smell test, not a score. A 3% rate of adverbs that all earn their place beats a 1% rate where the ones left are the empty ones.
After the adverbs: the other padding
Adverbs are one of four things that make writing flabby, and they rarely travel alone:
- Passive voice buries who did what — "a decision was made" instead of "we decided". Find it with the passive voice checker.
- Broken sentence boundaries — fragments and run-ons — cost more credibility than any adverb. The sentence fragment checker flags the first kind, the punctuation checker fixes both.
- Long sentences. Check the average with the readability checker; over about 25 words per sentence, adverbs are not your problem.
- Grammar and spelling still outrank style. The grammar checker fixes those without touching your wording.
Fix it anywhere you write
Limato's Chrome extension rewrites and corrects text inline on any website — Gmail, Slack, LinkedIn, Notion. Highlight, fix, paste back. 20 free rewrites a day.
Add to Chrome — FreeFrequently asked questions
What is an adverb checker?
A tool that highlights the adverbs in your text so you can decide which ones to keep. This one scans in your browser as you type — -ly adverbs plus the common intensifiers (very, quite, just, so, too, almost, always, never, often, rather) — and reports the count and the rate per 100 words. The rewrite button then produces a plainer version with the padding removed.
Are adverbs bad?
No. Weak adverbs are. An adverb that repeats its verb ("shouted loudly"), inflates a flat adjective ("very good") or hedges ("basically", "just") is padding. An adverb carrying a fact — time, frequency, degree, or logic — is doing real work. Delete it and read the sentence: if only the volume changed, it was padding.
How do I find adverbs in my writing?
Paste the text above; they are highlighted instantly and nothing leaves your browser. Manually, the shortcut is to search for -ly and then for very, really and just — those four searches catch most of them.
What can I use instead of "very"?
A stronger single word: very big becomes huge, very tired becomes exhausted, very important becomes critical, very angry becomes furious, very happy becomes delighted. If no single word fits, the underlying claim is probably vaguer than you meant it to be.
Does the rewrite just delete the adverbs?
No. It runs Limato's Simplify tone — shorter sentences, plainer words — and padding adverbs are the first thing that goes. It is a rewrite rather than a find-and-delete, so read the result: your meaning should survive, but the wording will change.
Is the adverb checker free?
Yes. The highlighting and the counts are entirely client-side and unlimited. The rewrite is free with a daily limit and no signup; the Limato Chrome extension gives 20 rewrites a day with a free Google account.