What part of speech is the word in italics? . shelly's beautiful dance thoroughly captivated the audience. a) noun. b) verb. c) adverb. d) adjective. the word thoroughly is in italics

The word in italics of speech is and adverb. Option C is correct.

The first characteristic of the word to be identified as an advern is the suffic -ly.

In this particular case, the adverb thoroughly is describing the verb captivated.  So that, this is another factor to take into account in order to identify an adverb and differ it from and adjective. Adverbs describe verbs while adjectives describe and works as modifiers of nouns.

Thoroughly means in a thorough manner.

C) Adverb

Explanation:

The phrase is

Shelly's beautiful dance thoroughly captivated the audience.

The verbs used are To Be, to captivate, and To Dance

The adjective used is beautiful

The Nouns are "Shelly", "Dance", and "The audience"

Which leaves us with thoroughly, which is being used to add meaning to qualify "captivated", making it an adverb.

By definition, an adverb is: "a word or phrase that modifies or qualifies an adjective, verb, or other adverb or a word group, expressing a relation of place, time, circumstance, manner, cause, degree, etc"