The word ‘lovely’ is –

The correct answer is C) An adjective. In 'a lovely day' or 'lovely flowers', 'lovely' qualifies a noun, which is the defining job of an adjective.

• A) Gerund: A gerund is a verb form ending in -ing that works as a noun, as in 'Swimming is fun'. 'Lovely' is not a verb form, so this is wrong.
• B) Verb: 'Lovely' has no tense, person or number inflection and cannot take an object. It is not used as a finite verb.
• D) Adverb: Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs, as in 'walked slowly'. Standard English does not use 'lovely' this way. The -ly ending misleads many candidates.

The core concept here is identifying parts of speech by function, not by spelling. Suffixes like -ly, -ing and -ed can mislead, so always check what the word does in the sentence. This matters for the English section and for precise writing in Mains answers, where a wrongly used modifier can change the meaning.

Trap: Seeing the -ly ending and choosing adverb without checking whether the word modifies a noun.