What are direct and indirect objects?

A grammatical object is a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase that’s affected by the action of a verb.

• A direct object is a person or thing acted upon by a verb.
• An indirect object indicates the person or thing that receives the direct object.

For example, in the sentence “I read Mia a story,” “a story” is the direct object (receiving the action) and “Mia” is the indirect object (receiving the direct object). Verbs that require a direct object to function correctly are called transitive verbs.