Adjectives

We use adjectives to describe nouns.
Most adjectives can be used in front of a noun…:

They have a beautiful house.
We saw a very exciting film last night.

or after a link verb like be, look or feel:

Their house is beautiful.
That film looks interesting.

Adjectives: -ed and -ing

A lot of adjectives are made from verbs by adding -ing or -ed:

-ing adjectives:

The commonest -ing adjectives are:
amusing shocking surprising frightening interesting disappointing exciting tiring worrying boring terrifying annoying

If you call something interesting you mean it interests you.
If you call something frightening you mean it frightens you.

I read a very interesting article in the newspaper today.
That Dracula film was absolutely terrifying.

-ed adjectives:

The commonest –ed adjectives are:
annoyed bored frightened worried tired closed       excited delighted disappointed
 
If something annoys you, you can say you feel annoyed. If something interests you, you can say you are interested.

The children had nothing to do. They were bored.

Order of Adjectives

Sometimes we use more than one adjective in front of a noun:

He was a nice intelligent young man.
She had a small round black wooden box.

Opinion adjectives:

Some adjectives give a general opinion. We can use these adjectives to describe almost any noun:

good	bad	lovely	strange
beautiful	nice	brilliant	excellent
awful	important	wonderful	nasty

Some adjectives give a specific opinion. We only use these adjectives to describe particular kinds of noun:

Food: tasty; delicious
Furniture, buildings: comfortable; uncomfortable
People, animals: clever; intelligent; friendly

We usually put a general opinion in front of a specific opinion:

Nice tasty soup.
A nasty uncomfortable armchair
A lovely intelligent animal

Usually we put an adjective that gives an opinion in front of an adjective that is descriptive:

a nice red dress; a silly old man; those horrible yellow curtains

We often have two adjectives in front of a noun:

a handsome young man; a big black car; that horrible big dog

Sometimes we have three adjectives, but this is unusual:

a nice handsome young man;
a big black American car;
that horrible big fierce dog

It is very unusual to have more than three adjectives.
Adjectives usually come in this order:

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
General opinion	Specific opinion	Size	Shape	Age	Colour	Nationality	Material

We use some adjectives only after a link verb:

afraid	alive	alone	asleep
content	glad	ill	ready
sorry	sure	unable	well

Some of the commonest -ed adjectives are normally used only after a link verb:
annoyed;  finished;  bored; pleased; thrilled
We say:

Our teacher was ill.
My uncle was very glad when he heard the news.
The policeman seemed to be very annoyed

but we do not say:

We had an ill teacher.
When he heard the news he was a very glad uncle
He seemed to be a very annoyed policeman

A few adjectives are used only in front of a noun:

north south east               west

northern southern eastern          western

countless occasional               lone

eventful indoor                   outdoor

We say:

He lives in the eastern district.
There were countless problems with the new machinery.

but we do not say:

The district he lives in is eastern
The problems with the new machinery were countless.

Try these tasks to improve your adjective ordering.

 

Comparative and superlative adjectives

We use comparative adjectives to describe people and things:

This car is certainly better but it’s much more expensive.
I’m feeling happier now.
We need a bigger garden

We use than when we want to compare one thing with another:

She is two years older than me.
New York is much bigger than Boston.
He is a better player than Ronaldo.
France is a bigger country than Britain.

When we want to describe how something or someone changes we can use two comparatives with and:

The balloon got bigger and bigger.
Everything is getting more and more expensive.
Grandfather is looking older and older. 

We often use the with comparative adjectives to show that one thing depends on another:

When you drive faster it is more dangerous
> The faster you drive, the more dangerous it is.
When they climbed higher it got colder
> The higher they climbed, the colder it got.

Superlative adjectives:

We use the with a superlative:
It was the happiest day of my life.
Everest is the highest mountain in the world.
That’s the best film I have seen this year.
I have three sisters, Jan is the oldest and Angela is the youngest .

Intensifiers

Intensifiers:

(Intermediate)
We use words like very, really and extremely to make adjectives stronger:

It’s a very interesting story
Everyone was very excited.
It’s a really interesting story.
Everyone was extremely excited

We call these words intensifiers. Other intensifiers are:

amazingly	exceptionally	incredibly
remarkably	particularly	unusually

We also use enough to say more about an adjective, but enough comes after its adjective:

If you are seventeen you are old enough to drive a car.
I can’t wear those shoes. They’re not big enough.

Intensifiers with strong adjectives:

Strong adjectives are words like:

enormous, huge = very big
tiny = very small
brilliant = very clever
awful; terrible; disgusting; dreadful = very bad
certain = very sure
excellent; perfect; ideal; wonderful; splendid = very good
delicious = very tasty

We do not normally use very with these adjectives. We do not say something is "very enormous" or someone is "very brilliant".

With strong adjectives, we normally use intensifiers like:

absolutely

completely

totally

utterly

really

exceptionally

particularly

quite

The film was absolutely awful.
He was an exceptionally brilliant child.
The food smelled really disgusting.

Mitigators

Mitigators are the opposite of intensifiers. When we want to make an adjective less strong we use these words:
fairly - rather - quite
By the end of the day we were rather tired.
The film wasn’t great but it was quite exciting.
and in informal English: pretty
We had a pretty good time at the party.
We call these words mitigators.

Warning
quite
When we use quite with a strong adjective it means the same as absolutely: The food was quite awful. = The food was absolutely awful. As a child he was quite brilliant. = As a child he was absolutely brilliant.

Mitigators with comparatives:

We use these words and phrases as mitigators:
a bit - just a bit - a little - a little bit - just a little bit - rather - slightly

She’s a bit younger than I am.
It takes two hours on the train but it is a little bit longer by road
This one is rather bigger (than the other one).
We use slightly and rather as mitigators with comparative adjectives in front of a noun:
This is a slightly more expensive model than that one.
This is a rather bigger one than the other.

Adjectives as intensifiers:

We use some adjectives as intensifiers:

absolute
total  - complete
utter  - perfect
real

We say:

He’s a complete idiot.
They were talking utter nonsense.

… but we do not say:

The idiot was complete.
The nonsense they were talking was utter.

Noun Modifiers

 

We often use two nouns together to show that one thing is a part of something else:
the village church; the car door; the kitchen window; the chair leg;
my coat pocket; London residents

Warning
We do not use a possessive form for these things. We do not talk about: The car’s door; the kitchen’s window; the chair’s leg

We can use noun modifiers to show what something is made of:

a gold watch; a leather purse; a metal box

We often use noun modifiers with nouns ending in -er and -ing:

an office worker; a jewellery maker; a potato peeler; a shopping list; a swimming lesson; a walking holiday.

We use measurements, age or value as noun modifiers:

a thirty kilogram suitcase; a two minute rest; a five thousand euro platinum watch; a fifty kilometre journey;

We often put two nouns together and readers/listeners have work out what they mean. So:

• an ice bucket = a bucket to keep ice in
• an ice cube = a cube made of ice
• an ice breaker = a ship which breaks ice
• the ice age = the time when much of the Earth was covered in ice.

Sometimes we find more than two nouns together:

London office workers; grammar practice exercises

Position of noun modifiers

Noun modifiers come after adjectives:
The old newspaper seller
A tiring fifty kilometre journey