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In this page you will find useful information to improve your adjectives skills.

 

Adjectives

Adjectives describe nouns and pronouns. (Old, green, and cheerful are examples of adjectives.)

Easy Examples of Adjectives

In each example, the adjective is highlighted.

An adjective usually comes directly before the noun or pronoun it describes (or modifies, as they say).

• old man
• green coat
• cheerful one

(When adjectives are used like this, they're called attributive adjectives.)

An adjective can come after the noun.

• Jack was old.
• It looks green.
(Adjectives can describe – or modify – pronouns too.)
• He seems cheerful.

In the three examples above, the adjectives have followed linking verbs (was, looks, and seems) to describe the noun or pronoun. (When adjectives are used like this, they're called predicative adjectives.)

Sometimes, an adjective comes immediately after a noun.

• the Princess Royal
• time immemorial
• body beautiful
• the best seats available
• the worst manners imaginable

When adjectives are used like this, they're called postpositive adjectives. Postpositive adjectives are most common with pronouns.

• someone interesting
• those present
• something evil

A descriptive adjective will usual fit into one of the following categories:

Category	Example
Appearance	attractive, burly, clean, dusty
Colour	azure, blue, cyan, dark
Condition	absent, broken, careful, dead
Personality	annoying, brave, complex, dizzy
Quantity	ample, bountiful, countless, deficient
Sense	aromatic, bitter, cold, deafening
Size and Shape	angular, broad, circular, deep
Time	ancient, brief, concurrent, daily

More about Adjectives

The Transition from Adjectives to "Determiners"

For centuries, the term "adjective" has been used for a word type now called determiners. Determiners are still classified as adjectives by most people but not everyone [evidence]. Determiners indicate qualities such as the following:

• Possession (e.g., my dog)
• Specificity (e.g., that dog)
• Quantity (e.g., one dog)
• Definiteness (e.g., a dog)

Regardless of whether you classify determiners as adjectives, this much is true: determiners are not like descriptive adjectives.

The possessive Determiners. (called "possessive adjectives" in traditional grammar) are my, your, his, her, its, our, their, and whose. A possessive determiner sits before a noun (or a pronoun) to show who (or what) owns it.

• When a man opens a car door for his wife, it's either a new car or a new wife. (Prince Philip)
• The only time a wife listens to her husband is when he's asleep. (Cartoonist Chuck Jones)

Read more about possessive determiners/adjectives.

Nouns Used as Adjectives

Many words that are usually nouns can function as adjectives. For example:

• autumn colours
• boat race
• computer shop
• Devon cream
• electricity board
• fruit fly

Here are some real-life examples:

• Not all face masks are created equal. (Entrepreneur Hannah Bronfman)
• You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves. (Premier Joseph Stalin)

When used like adjectives, nouns are known as attributive nouns.

Participles Used as Adjectives

Formed from a verb, a participle is a word that can be used as an adjective. There are two types of participle:

• The present participle (ending -ing)
• The past participle (usually ending -ed, -d, -t, -en, or -n)

Here are some examples of participles as verbs:

• The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny." (Writer Isaac Asimov)
• Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual. (Author Terry Pratchett)
• While the spoken word can travel faster, you can't take it home in your hand. Only the written word can be absorbed wholly at the convenience of the reader. (Educator Kingman Brewster)
• We all have friends and loved ones who say 60 is the new 30. No, it's the new 60. (Fashion model Iman)

A participle is classified as a verbal (a verb form that functions as a noun or an adjective).

Infinitives Used as Adjectives

An infinitive verb (e.g., to run, to jump) can also function as an adjective.

• No human creature can give orders to love. (French novelist George Sand) (Here, the infinitive to love describes the noun orders.)
• Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity. (Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl)
(An infinitive will often head its own phrase. Here, the infinitive phrase to complicate simplicity describes the noun ability.)

Read more about infinitive verbs.

The Order of Adjectives

When two or more adjectives are strung together, they should be ordered according to the following list:

Order	Category	Examples
1	Determiner	the, my, those
2	Number	one, two, ninety-nine
3	Opinion	lovely, attractive, rare
4	Size	small, medium, large
5	Physical Quality	thin, lumpy, cluttered
6	Shape	round, square, triangular
7	Age	young, middle-aged, old
8	Colour	red, white, blue
9	Origin	British, German, Russian
10	Material	wood, metal, plastic
11	Type	L-shaped, two-sided, all-purpose
12	Purpose	cooking, supporting, tendering
13	Attributive Noun	service, improvement, head

Here is an example of a 14-adjective string (shaded) that is ordered correctly:

• my two lovely XL thin tubular new white Spanish metallic hinged correcting knee braces.

Regardless of how many adjectives are used (more than 3 is rare), the established order is still followed.

• That's a lovely, mixing bowl
(1: Determiner 2: Opinion 3: Purpose)
• Who's nicked my two black, wooden spoons?
(1: Number 2: Colour 3: Material)
• Give your ticket to the Italian old waiter. 
(Age comes before origin. Therefore, the old Italian waiter would have been better.)

This list of precedence is not universally agreed, but all versions are pretty similar. The area of most dispute is age and shape. The order can change for emphasis too. If there were two old waiters, one Italian and one Spanish, then the wrong example above would be correct, and the word Italian would be emphasised.

Read more about the order of adjectives.