Introduction
Adjectives describe nouns and pronouns: what something is like, how big it is, what colour, where it's from.
| Type | Examples | Usage |
|---|---|---|
| Descriptive | beautiful, tall, cold, soft | Describe a quality of the noun |
| Participial | boring / bored, exciting / excited | Formed from verbs (-ing / -ed) |
| Comparative | bigger, more interesting | Compare two things |
| Superlative | biggest, most interesting | Compare three or more things |
- She lives in a beautiful large old house.
- Marco is tall and athletic.
- It was the most exciting game I've ever seen.
Words like some, many, this, my and which also come before nouns, but they are determiners, not adjectives - they are covered in the Determiners section.
Position of Adjectives
In English, adjectives most commonly come before the noun they modify (attributive position) or after a linking verb (predicative position).
Attributiveadjective+noun a cold day
Predicativenoun+linking verb+adjective The day is cold
- Attributive: I bought a new car.
- Predicative: The car is new.
- Both: It is a beautiful day. / The day is beautiful.
Some adjectives only work attributively (main, chief, utter: the main reason, never the reason is main) and some only predicatively (afraid, asleep, alive: she is afraid, never the afraid woman).
Order of Adjectives
When several adjectives precede a noun, they follow a specific order. Native speakers follow this naturally; learners need to memorise the sequence.
| Order | Category | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Opinion/general | lovely, ugly, wonderful, strange |
| 2 | Size | big, small, tiny, enormous |
| 3 | Age | old, young, new, ancient |
| 4 | Shape | round, square, flat, triangular |
| 5 | Colour | red, blue, dark, pale |
| 6 | Origin | French, Italian, Asian, northern |
| 7 | Material | silk, metal, plastic, stone |
| 8 | Purpose/qualifier | sleeping (bag), writing (desk) |
- A lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife.
- A beautiful big old house.
- A small red Italian car.
Practice
In 'The day is cold,' the adjective 'cold' is in ___ position.
Which word order is correct?
'Biggest' is an example of a ___ adjective.
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