Adjectives

Nouns are fine, but sometimes they need an adjective or two to bring them to life.

Introduction

Adjectives add flavour and specificity to our writing. Without adjectives, we cannot explain to our reader what a bouquet of flowers looks or smells like, or how many flowers are present. 

That said, adjectives can water down a sentence if overused. 

Modifying Nouns

We can use adjectives to give more detail about a noun. 

In these examples the adjectives are placed directly before the nouns they modify. However, we can change this order if desired.

Possessive Adjectives

As their name suggests, possessive adjectives indicate ownership.

Possessive adjectives look a lot like possessive personal pronouns, but grammatically they are considered adjectives. 

Note that we do not need to use an apostrophe with the possessive adjective its.  

Adjectives of Number

Adjectives of number allow us to indicate how many countable nouns a speaker is referring to. 

They can be used to answer questions that begin with How many...? 

There are three types of adjectives of number: definite numeral adjectives, indefinite numeral adjectives and distributive numeral adjectives.

Consider the following examples:

Adjectives of Quantity

Adjectives of quantity can be used to refer to an approximate quantity of uncountable nouns. 

They can be used to answer questions that begin with How much...?

Consider the following examples:

Degrees of comparison

An adjective can be used to describe the quality of a noun—whether on its own, or in comparison with others. 

Such adjectives come in three forms: absolute, comparative and superlative (pronounced su-per-la-tive).

Consider the following examples of absolute, comparative and superlative adjectives, and look for the slight differences between them.

Here, the adjective fast is modified by adding -er and -est. However, delicious is modified by placing more and the most before it. 

This is because adjectives with only one syllable can be modified with -er and -est to become comparative and superlative adjectives. However,  adjectives with two or more syllables require more or the most before them to become comparative or superlative adjectives.

Note also that the word superlative can be used as an adjective to describe something of the highest quality.

Adjectives as Nouns and Verbs

Some words can be both adjectives and nouns.

In fact, some flexible words can be used as nouns, verbs and adjectives. 

How good are dogs. 

Compound Adjectives

Sometimes, multiple words can be combined to act as a single adjective. This is known as a compound adjective.

Consider the following examples of compound adjectives. 

There are a couple of things to note about these examples.

The first is that not all of the components of a compound adjective need to be adjectives themselves. The first example (long-term) consists of an adjective (long) and a noun (term), while the second example (poorly prepared) consists of an adverb (poorly) and an adjective (prepared).

The second thing to note is that if a compound adjective contains an adverb that ends in -ly, we do not place a hyphen after it. This is because the reader can tell from the -ly that this word is an adverb and must therefore connect to the word in front of it. 

Note that we place a hyphen between any number of words that make up a compound adjective.

Adjective Phrases

Just as there are noun phrases and verb phrases, so too are there adjective phrases. 

Consider the following examples of adjective phrases, with the head adjective underlined:

There are a couple of things to note from these examples.

First, an adjective phrase can come before or after a noun.

Secondly, if an adjectival phrase is removed from a sentence, the sentence remains grammatically complete. 

However, when an adjective phrase relates to a stative verb, the adjectival phrase cannot be removed or the sentence becomes grammatically incomplete. 

An adjective phrase can be one word or it can be many; grammatically, however, it is always treated as a single entity within a sentence.

Using Adjectives

While adjectives can add flavour and specificity to our writing, they can also water down our language if used to excess.

Often, a specific noun has more power to communicate meaning than a series of vague adjectives. 

When considering how to approach adjectives in our writing, we can reflect on some advice from author Mark Twain to one of his students:

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Adverbs