Adjectives

An adjective describes a noun (person, place animal or thing) or a pronoun. It comes before the noun/pronoun but some adjectives can appear after a linking verb, e.g. 'to be'.

Before the noun or pronoun

The red dress.
The big tree.
Her sparkling dress.

After the noun or pronoun

The dress is red.
The tree is big.
Her dress is sparkling.

Some adjectives can be recognised by their endings. The tables below show some adjectives with the following endings: able, al, ed, en, ent, ful, ible, ic, ical, ing, ish, ive, less, ly, ous, and y.

able	al	ed	en
available	accidental	gifted	broken
comfortable	functional	embarrassed	even
disagreeable	natural	defeated	green

ent	ful	ible	ic
divergent	helpful	terrible	economic
intelligent	careful	horrible	acoustic
ancient	delightful	tangible	elastic

ical	ing	ish	ive
chemical	interesting	boorish	expensive
physical	amazing	foolish	attractive
magical	annoying	selfish	descriptive

less	ly	ous	y
helpless	elderly	enormous	funny
useless	lovely	courageous	noisy
careless	friendly	dangerous	dirty

Types of Adjectives

Quantity

The adjective of quantity answers the question how many (countable) or how much (uncountable) nouns.

How Many (Countable)
He found ten keys. Twelve birds are flying. The seven dwarfs.

How Much (Uncountable)
I have read a lot of books. He had a few cups of coffee. She had plenty of money.

Quality

The quality of adjective answers the question what kind of a noun it is. For example it describes the colour, shape, size, age or origin of a noun.

Colour	The sea is blue.
Shape	A round table.
Size	A big tree.
Age	An old handbag.
Origin	An English muffin.

You can have several adjectives describing a noun/pronoun but they have to be placed in the correct order.

Order of Adjectives:

Opinion: lovely, nice, beautiful
Size: small, little, big
Age: young, old, new
Shape: round, square, triangle
Colour: red, green, blue, black
Origin: Italian, British, Dutch
Material: plastic, wooden, metal

Examples:

She wore a beautiful green dress.

It is an old square box.

He is making a small wooden toy.

I bought a red Italian handbag.

They found a round plastic ball.

POSSESSIVE

Adjective of possesive expresses the ownership or relationship of something.

Pronoun	Possessive	Example
I	My	This is my coat.
He	His	His car is blue.
She	Her	Her ring is pretty
You	Your	Your house is nice.
We	Our	Our school has a swimming pool.
They	Their	Their table is big.
It	Its	The dog ate its food.

DEMONSTRATIVE

Demonstrative adjectives are this, that, these and those. They indicate if the noun that we are talking about is near or far away.

Near	Far away
This	That
These	Those

Singular	Plural
This	These
That	Those

Examples

These shoes belong to Sam.
That dog barks too much.
This book is being sold in the market.
Those cushions are beautiful.

INTERROGATIVE

Adjective of interrogative such as whose, which and where are used when we want to ask a question.

Whose going to the swimming pool?
Which train are you travelling on?
Where did you buy the bag?

Comparative Adjective

Comparative Adjective compares two nouns. The adjective mostly end in er.

Normal	Comparative
Hot - My drink is hot.	Hotter - Jane's drink is hotter than yours.
Small - Sara is small.	Smaller - Anne is smaller than Sara.
Slow - She walks slow.	Slower - He walks slower than her
Fast - Tom runs fast.	Faster - Kelly runs faster than Tom.

Note! The word than is used with the comparative adjective.

Superlative Adjective

The superlative adjective compares more than two nouns and mostly end in est.

Normal	Comparative	Superlative
Tall - Tim is tall.	Taller - Jane is taller than Tim.	Tallest - Imran is the tallest.
Happy - Mo is happy.	Happier - Sara is happier than Mo.	Happiest - Paul is the happiest.
Wise - Jack is wise.	Wiser - Sara is wiser than Jack.	Wisest - Linda is the wisest.

Note! The word the is used with the superlative adjective.

SPELLING RULES!

The following spelling rules will help you understand how to form the comparative and superlative adjectives.

One Syllable Adjectives	Comparative	Superlative
ends in e Example: wise	add r at the end wiser	add st at the end wisest
ends with a vowel and a consonant Example: big	double the consonant g and add er bigger	double the consonant g and add est biggest

A Two Syllable Adjective	Comparative	Superlative
ends in y Example: happy	replace the y with i and add er happier	replace y with i and add est happiest

Note! Comparative adjectives end in er and superlative adjectives end in est.

More and Most

Most adjectives with two or more syllables use either more or less to form the comparative adjective and most or least to form the superlative adjective.

Normal	Comparative	Superlative
beautiful	more/less beautiful	most/least beautiful
intelligent	more/less intelligent	most/least intelligent
charming	more/less charming	most/least charming
comfortable	more/less comfortable	most/least comfortable

Note! The adjective word does not change when used with more and most.

Example:

My vase is more beautiful than yours.

The most beautiful painting in this room belongs to Jack.

Note: than is used with the comparative adjective and the is used with the superlative adjective.

Irregular Adjectives

There are exception to the rules with irregular adjectives. You just need to familiarise yourself with irregular adjectives.

Irregular Adjectives	Comparative	Superlative
bad	worse	worst
good	better	best
little	less	least
many	more	most
far	further	futherest

Now try the Exercises!