Adjectives – Part 1
1. What are adjectives?
Adjectives are words that describe nouns (objects, people).
For example:
nice, good, beautiful, worried, insulting, continuous
Adjectives can go before nouns: adjective + noun
a nice person a good day a beautiful cat an insulting remark | Adjectives can go after some verbs: verbs + adjective seem nice is good looks beautiful feel happy |
2. Order of adjectives
Sometimes we need to use more than one adjectives. An opinion normally goes before the fact:
Opinion | + fact | + noun |
An interesting A beautiful An interesting | Spanish black new | movie cat idea |
If we have several factual adjectives, we use the following order:
size | +age | +shape | +colour | +origin | +material | +purpose | +noun |
a huge | ancient | round | blue | Japanese | wooden | ---- | table |
a small | new | ------ | ----- | German | silver | tea | spoon |
an ---- | old | square | black | ------ | plastic | radio | button |
3. Adding suffixes
Adjectives can be individual, unique words (nice, small) or can be formed from other words by using suffixes or prefixes.
- able: manageable, readable
- ible: flexible, edible
- ant: hesitant, distant
- ing: sleeping
- ic: energetic, apologetic
- ish: foolish, blueish
- ous: dangerous, famous
- ly: friendly, weekly
- al: political, musical
- ful: harmful, tactful
- les: harmless, careless
- ive: attractive, passive
4. Adding prefixes
We can form new adjectives by adding prefixes to words. These prefixes create a negative meaning.
im-: impossible, impatient
il-: illogical, illegal
un-: undesirable, unattractive
in-: indispensable, indirect
dis-: dishonest, disabled
ir-: irreplaceable, irrational
pre-: pre-negotiated, preheated
Note: adding pre- to an adjective, does not create a negative meaning.
5. Compound adjectives
Compound adjectives are created by using two words. They are usually written with a hyphen.
bullet-proof, duty-free, long-distance, sugar-free, hand-made
The second part is often a present or past participle. These are often used to describe a person:
long-legged, curly-haired, self-centred, absent-minded, ill-fitting, expensive-looking
We can also use prepositions to create a compound adjective:
off-putting, built-up, cut-off, run-down, thrown-out
6. Adjectives of measurement
We can combine numbers with nouns to make compound adjectives. They are used to measure different things, ie. age, distance, etc.
a five-minute song (time)
a two-year-old girl (age)
a ten-euro ticket (price)
a one-litre bottle (volume)
a three-kilo parcel (weight)
a fifty-square metre house (area)
an hour-long meeting (duration)
