What part of speech is "late" in the sentence "They were quite late"?

In the sentence "They were quite late," the word "late" functions as an adjective. Adjectives are words that describe or modify nouns, providing more information about them. In this case, "late" describes the subject "they," indicating the state or condition of being delayed or not on time.

Adjectives often answer questions such as "what kind?" or "which one?" For example, in this sentence, one might ask "what kind of people were they?" and the answer would be "late," which gives us information about their timing.

This understanding of "late" as describing a noun helps clarify its role as an adjective, distinguishing it from other parts of speech that do not serve this descriptive function in the context of the sentence.