Adjectives: the essentials
Adjectives are one of the main classes of words in any language. How they work and how they are used, however, vary.
By the end of this guide, you should be able to understand and apply these technical concepts (and there's a test at the end):
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Definition |
An adjective is usually defined something like
a word grammatically attached to a noun to modify or describe it
Easy question:
Spot the adjectives in these examples:
- The tall trees bent in the fierce winds.
- He finally came along half an hour late for the first meeting.
- The green-jacketed, first-form students looked nervous.
- The audience was fascinated by the short lecture.
- The policeman involved in the nasty incident was quite upset.
- The small, green sports car was thoroughly washed and polished till it shone as bright as a new pin.
Click here when you have answers.
The adjectives are highlighted in black in the following:
- The tall trees bent in the fierce winds.
- He finally came along half an hour late for the first meeting.
- The green-jacketed, first-form students looked nervous.
- The audience was fascinated by the short lecture.
- The policeman involved in the nasty incident was quite upset.
- The small, green sports car was thoroughly washed and polished till it shone as bright as a new pin.
Some are easier to identify than others, aren't they? Here are some comments:
- Adjectives in English usually come
before the noun they modify. We can see this with
tall
trees, fierce
winds, first
meeting, green-jacketed,
first-form students,
short
lecture, nasty
incident, small, green sports
car and
new
pin.
This use of adjectives is called attributive.
Some adjectives are only used attributively. Examples are entire, outright, pure. We can have, e.g.:
He ate the entire packet
It was the pure truth
and
That was an outright lie
but we can't say:
*The packet was entire
*The truth was pure
or
*The lie was outright - In sentences 3., 4. and 5., however,
we have the alternative adjective position: looked
nervous,
was fascinated,
was quite upset.
Here the adjectives follow the noun they modify and are connected to it either by the verb be or by another verb which works in the same way. These are called, incidentally, copular verbs and one of their functions is to connect a noun with its adjective. Other copular verbs include seem, appear, get, grow, smell, taste, become. There's a guide to copular verbs on this site, linked below in the list of related guides.
This use of adjectives is called predicative.
Some adjectives can only be used predicatively. Examples are asleep, awake, alive, alert etc. They start with a-. We can't say
*The asleep dog
and we need to say
The dog is / was / seems asleep
for example.
There are two oddballs in the examples:
- the policeman
involved
A few adjectives in English can (and sometimes must) follow the noun and they include involved, concerned, proper, elect and some others. The use of the adjective is still attributive, not predicative, because there is no connecting copular verb. They need not concern us here. - shone as bright
as a new pin
The adjective bright is actually acting as an adverb modifying the verb shone. It tells us how the car shone, not what the car was like. That's an unusual use of an adjective which will also not concern us here. Many people would prefer brightly here but the use of an adjective form as an adverb is actually quite common informally.
Did you identify any of the following as adjectives: finally, quite, thoroughly, washed, polished, bright?
If you did:
- Words which modify a verb as in finally came and thoroughly washed (i.e., which tell us when or how something was done) are adverbs, not adjectives.
- The other issue is that we can't tell an adjective just by looking at its form. We need to know what it is doing in the sentence. The words washed and polished are certainly used as adjectives as in, e.g., the washed carpet or the polished glassware, but in the examples above they are simply verbs (past participle forms, in fact).
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Tests for adjectives |
There are two simple tests for adjectives:
- We can make comparatives either by adding -er or -est or by putting more / most before them
- We can modify them with the adverb very
Try these tests with the adjectives we have encountered so far.
What do you notice?
Click here when you have done that.
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We
can have: taller, fiercer,
more nervous, more fascinated,
shorter, nastier, more
upset, smaller, greener and
newer.
However, we can't have *firster, *more green-jacketed, *more first-form, *more sports.
The reason is twofold:- Some adjectives simply cannot be made more or less: you are either first or you aren't, something is either impossible or it isn't. Such adjectives are called ungradable.
- The second reason is that some adjectives tell us what class of thing we are dealing with. For example, French cheese tells us what sort of cheese we are talking about, sports car tells us what sort of car it is. These are called classifiers and cannot be modified this way. An adjective which is not a classifier is called an epithet.
Ungradable adjectives include those which represent an on-off, either-or distinction such as first, last, open, shut etc. Something or someone is either one or the other and there are no intermediate stages.
Classifiers tell us what class or category of object or person we are considering and they also cannot be graded. The words include many nouns which are used as if they were adjectives. They include, for example, words such as French, electronic, school, plastic and so on which come immediately before the noun in most cases and also cannot be compared. A car can't be *a very sports car and we can't have a very plastic cup, for example. - We can also have very tall, very fierce, very nervous, very upset, very new and so on. There's some argument whether we can have very first in this sense, because very means truly here, or very fascinated because fascinated is usually considered too strong a word to be modified by very. Compare it with very amazing, very dreadful, very astounding etc. These adjectives, sometimes called extreme adjectives, are not usually gradable with very (we prefer adverbs such as completely, totally, extremely etc. to modify them). See the guide to gradability, linked in the list at the end, for more.
There are a number of other tests for adjectives. For more, see the more advanced guide to this area, linked below.
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Comparing adjectives |
Adjectives can be made comparative or superlative.
Comparative structures are, for example:
Mary is taller
than John
Mary is more intelligent
than me
Superlative structures single
out one as the highest form of the adjective, e.g.:
She is the fittest person for
the job
That is the most ridiculous idea of them all
The
rules for how we make the forms apply to both.
English has two ways to compare adjectives:
- We can add -er or -est to the end of the adjective (dropping an 'e' or changing 'y' to 'i' where we need to). This is called inflexion.
- We can add more or most before the adjective. This is called a periphrastic form.
Try modifying the adjectives here and work out what the rules are. Click on the table when you have the answer. The following focuses on the comparative form but the superlatives follow the same rules.
There are some irregular ones (as in most languages) including, e.g.,
far-further/farther, good-better-best, bad-worse-worst etc. and
there's a bit more to it than that but this is the simplest explanation.
There is a more complete (and more technical)
guide to
comparison in the in-service section, linked below.
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Ordering adjectives |
Many books for students delight in giving complex and elaborate rules for why we say, for example:
- small, brown house
not
brown, small house - tall citrus trees
not
citrus tall trees - rude
English tourists
not
English rude tourists - ugly, fat, porcelain, Chinese vases
not
porcelain, Chinese, fat, ugly vases
But actually the general rule is quite simple. Any ideas? Click when you have some.
- Classifiers like, English, Chinese and citrus go closest to the noun. Some classifiers are inseparable from the noun, e.g., schoolboys. They form a compound.
- Adjectives which are ungradable (i.e., cannot be more or less so) come next. The example here is porcelain. Something is either porcelain or it isn't. Often these relate to the material something is made of.
- Adjectives which are gradable but not very arguable come next. The examples here are fat and tall.
- Adjectives which are a matter of opinion come furthest from the noun. The example here is ugly (and probably, rude)).
The simple way to present this is on a cline, like this:
There is a bit more to this and for some detail, you should refer to the in-service guide to adjectives, linked below.
There is, of course, a test on this.
| Related guides | |
| word class maps | this link takes you to the index of guides to word classes on this site |
| guide to adjectives | for a more advanced and detailed guide to this area |
| comparison | for a more technical guide to how things are compared in English |
| gradability | for a guide to a key adjectival characteristic |
| copular verbs | for a guide to how verbs link the subject to the attribute, its complement |