Adjectives describe or give more information about nouns and pronouns. They help answer questions such as what kind, which one, how many, or how much.
Start with What Is an Adjective? for the basic definition, types, positions, and examples. You can then explore detailed lessons on adjective order, degrees of comparison, compound adjectives, proper adjectives, predicate adjectives, and other adjective types.
A room can be cold, or it can be freezing. You can feel tired, or you can be exhausted after a long journey. Words such as freezing and exhausted do more than describe a quality. They express it at a…
A meeting can be slightly tense, quite tense, or extremely tense. The adjective tense allows different degrees of the same quality. Other adjectives behave differently. Something described as identical, medical, or freezing does not fit the same scale in the…
A quiet neighborhood, a former colleague, and an unexpected delay all use adjectives before nouns. When an adjective is used this way, it is in attributive position. Many English adjectives can also appear after linking verbs, but some strongly prefer…
Adjectives help describe the qualities of nouns—how something looks, feels, or behaves. But when you compare those qualities, adjectives take different forms. Words like smaller, faster, and most beautiful show how one thing differs from another. These are known as…
Adjectives allow us to describe the qualities of people, places, and things. But when we want to compare those qualities, adjectives take on new forms—known as the degrees of comparison. There are three degrees of comparison in English: positive, comparative,…
Most adjectives in English follow clear rules when you compare things. You add –er or use more to form the comparative, and –est or most for the superlative. But not all adjectives behave this way. Some completely change form when…
Some adjectives are easy to compare. A road can be narrower, a meal can be more expensive, and a room can feel colder than another. But words such as identical, complete, impossible, and dead do not work in quite the…
Adjectives don’t just describe; they also compare. When you say one thing is faster, smarter, or more comfortable than another, you’re using comparative adjectives. When you describe something as the best, the tallest, or the most exciting, you’re using superlative…
In English grammar, adjectives help describe the quality of nouns. How tall a person is, how fast a car moves, or how beautiful a painting looks. But when you want to compare two or more things, adjectives change form. This…
The soup smells spicy, the auditorium became quiet, and the hikers looked exhausted. In each sentence, the adjective appears after a verb but still describes the subject. This is predicative use, and the adjective is commonly called a predicate adjective.…
A confusing instruction, a confused traveler, a broken railing, and boiling water all contain forms that come from verbs but work adjectivally. These are commonly called participial adjectives. Some appear in familiar -ing/-ed pairs, but the category is much broader…
A beautiful old Italian painting sounds natural. An Italian beautiful old painting does not. The adjectives are the same, but English normally places them in a particular sequence before a noun. This pattern is called adjective order. The familiar OSASCOMP…