"A big house", "2 tall men", "long hair". In these examples the adjectives are "big", "tall" and "long". An adjective describes a noun. In English adjectives are not gendered and they don't have a plural form. Learn about adjectives below.
An adjective is a word that modifies a noun*. Adjectives can denote a quality of the noun being modified or they can extend, complement or quantify the size or extent of the noun. Adjectives are words that name or indicate qualities, features, characteristics or properties of the noun which they modify.
Examples:
| the tall man |
| a happy child |
| a dark street |
| a Spanish woman |
| the red ball |
| a cold winter |
| the glass table |
In English there are six types of adjectives:
1. Descriptive/Qualitative
2. Demonstrative
For more information, see the lesson on demonstrative pronouns.
For more information, see the lesson on demonstrative pronouns.
3. Quantitative
For more information, see the lesson on quantifiers.
For more information, see the lesson on quantifiers.
4. Interrogative
For more information, see the lesson on constructing questions.
For more information, see the lesson on constructing questions.
5. Possessive
For more information, see the lesson on possessive pronouns.
For more information, see the lesson on possessive pronouns.
6. Numeric
For more information, see the lessons on cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers.
For more information, see the lessons on cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers.
1. The adjective is almost always situated in front of the noun, as we saw in the examples at the beginning of the lesson. With some verbs, the adjective is located after the verb. These verbs include:
Examples:
| She looks [seems] tired. |
| I feel good. |
| It smells bad. |
| You are beautiful. |
2. Adjectives in English are not gendered as in some other languages.
3. In general, adjectives do not have a plural form. Only demonstrative and quantitative adjectives have different forms for singular and plural.
Demonstrative:
| this pencil |
| these pencils |
Quantitatives:
| much money |
| many books |
4. We can use two or more adjectives together.
Examples:
| a small black book |
| a pretty Spanish woman |
| a large glass table |
| a wonderful old city |
As a general rule, we follow the order in the table below when using more than one adjective together:
| Order | Adjective Type | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | opinion/value | delicious, wonderful, pretty… |
| 2 | size | short, big, small, tall… |
| 3 | age/temperature | new, old, young, hot, cold… |
| 4 | shape/form | round, fat, thin, square… |
| 5 | color | red, black, blue, green… |
| 6 | origin | Spanish, American, French… |
| 7 | material | silver, cotton, paper, iron… |
| 8 | use | electric, political… |
| 9 | name | bath (towel)… |
