Definition
Adjectives are words that describe or modify
another person or thing in the sentence. The Articles — a, an, and the — are
adjectives.
- the tall
professor
- the lugubrious
lieutenant
- a solid
commitment
- a month's
pay
- a six-year-old
child
- the unhappiest,
richest
man
If a
group of words containing a subject and verb acts as an adjective, it is called
an Adjective Clause. My sister, who is much older than I am,
is an engineer. If an adjective clause is stripped of its subject and verb, the
resulting modifier becomes an Adjective Phrase: He is the man who is
keeping my family in the poorhouse.
Before getting into other usage
considerations, one general note about the use — or over-use — of adjectives: Adjectives
are frail; don't ask them to do more work than they should. Let your
broad-shouldered verbs and nouns do the hard work of description. Be
particularly cautious in your use of adjectives that don't have much to say in
the first place: interesting, beautiful, lovely, exciting. It is your
job as a writer to create beauty and excitement and interest, and when you
simply insist on its presence without showing it to your reader — well,
you're convincing no one.
Consider the uses of modifiers in this
adjectivally rich paragraph from Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel.
(Charles Scribner's, 1929, p. 69.) Adjectives are highlighted in this color; participles, verb forms acting as adjectives, are highlighted in
this blue. Some people would argue that words that are part of a name — like
"East India Tea House — are not really adjectival and that
possessive nouns — father's, farmer's — are not technically
adjectives, but we've included them in our analysis of Wolfe's text.
He remembered yet the East India Tea House at
the Fair, the sandalwood, the turbans, and the robes, the cool interior and the
smell of India tea; and he had felt now the nostalgic thrill of dew-wet
mornings in Spring, the cherry scent, the cool clarion earth, the wet loaminess
of the garden, the pungent breakfast smells and the floating snow of blossoms.
He knew the inchoate sharp excitement of hot dandelions in young earth; in
July, of watermelons bedded in sweet hay, inside a farmer's covered wagon; of cantaloupe
and crated peaches; and the scent of orange rind, bitter-sweet, before a fire
of coals. He knew the good male smell of his father's sitting-room; of the
smooth worn leather sofa, with the gaping horse-hair rent; of the blistered
varnished wood upon the hearth; of the heated calf-skin bindings; of the flat
moist plug of apple tobacco, stuck with a red flag; of wood-smoke and burnt
leaves in October; of the brown tired autumn earth; of honey-suckle at night;
of warm nasturtiums, of a clean ruddy farmer who comes weekly with printed
butter, eggs, and milk; of fat limp underdone bacon and of coffee; of a
bakery-oven in the wind; of large deep-hued stringbeans smoking-hot and
seasoned well with salt and butter; of a room of old pine boards in which books
and carpets have been stored, long closed; of Concord grapes in their long
white baskets.
An abundance of adjectives like this would be
uncommon in contemporary prose. Whether we have lost something or not is left
up to you.
Position
of Adjectives
Unlike Adverbs, which often seem capable of popping up almost anywhere
in a sentence, adjectives nearly always appear immediately before the noun or
noun phrase that they modify. Sometimes they appear in a string of adjectives,
and when they do, they appear in a set order according to category. (See Below.) When indefinite pronouns — such as something, someone,
anybody — are modified by an adjective, the adjective comes after the pronoun:
Anyone capable of doing something horrible to someone
nice should be punished.
Something wicked this way comes.
And there are certain adjectives that, in
combination with certain words, are always "postpositive" (coming
after the thing they modify):
The president elect, heir apparent
to the Glitzy fortune, lives in New York proper.
See, also, the note on a- adjectives, below, for the position of such words as
"ablaze, aloof, aghast."
Degrees
of Adjectives
Adjectives can express degrees of
modification:
- Gladys
is a rich woman, but Josie is richer than Gladys, and Sadie
is the richest woman in town.
The degrees of comparison are known as the positive,
the comparative, and the superlative. (Actually, only the
comparative and superlative show degrees.) We use the comparative for
comparing two things and the superlative for comparing three or more things.
Notice that the word than frequently accompanies the comparative and
the word the precedes the superlative. The inflected suffixes -er
and -est suffice to form most comparatives and superlatives, although
we need -ier and -iest when a two-syllable adjective ends in y
(happier and happiest); otherwise we use more and most when an
adjective has more than one syllable.
|
|
Positive
|
Comparative
|
Superlative
|
Rich
|
Richer
|
richest
|
Lovely
|
Lovelier
|
loveliest
|
Beautiful
|
more beautiful
|
most beautiful
|
Certain adjectives have irregular forms in
the comparative and superlative degrees:
Irregular Comparative and Superlative Forms
|
Good
|
better
|
best
|
Bad
|
worse
|
worst
|
Little
|
less
|
least
|
much
many
some
|
more
|
most
|
Far
|
further
|
furthest
|
Be careful not to form comparatives or
superlatives of adjectives which already express an extreme of comparison — unique,
for instance — although it probably is possible to form comparative forms of
most adjectives: something can be more perfect, and someone can have a fuller
figure. People who argue that one woman cannot be more pregnant than
another have never been nine-months pregnant with twins.
Grammar's Response
According to Bryan Garner,
"complete" is one of those adjectives that does not admit of
comparative degrees. We could say, however, "more nearly
complete." I am sure that I have not been consistent in my application of
this principle in the Guide (I can hear myself, now, saying something like
"less adequate" or "more preferable" or "less
fatal"). Other adjectives that Garner would include in this list are as
follows:
absolute
|
Impossible
|
principal
|
adequate
|
Inevitable
|
stationary
|
chief
|
irrevocable
|
sufficient
|
complete
|
Main
|
Unanimous
|
devoid
|
Manifest
|
Unavoidable
|
entire
|
Minor
|
Unbroken
|
fatal
|
Paramount
|
Unique
|
final
|
Perpetual
|
Universal
|
ideal
|
Preferable
|
whole
|
From The Oxford Dictionary of American
Usage and Styleby Bryan Garner. Copyright 1995 by Bryan A. Garner.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., www.oup-usa.org, and used with the
gracious consent of Oxford University Press.
Be careful, also, not to use more
along with a comparative adjective formed with -er nor to use most
along with a superlative adjective formed with -est (e.g., do not write
that something is more heavier or most heaviest).
The as — as construction is used to
create a comparison expressing equality:
- He
is as foolish as he is large.
- She
is as bright as her mother.
Premodifiers
with Degrees of Adjectives
Both adverbs and adjectives in their
comparative and superlative forms can be accompanied by premodifiers, single
words and phrases, that intensify the degree.
- We
were a lot more careful this time.
- He
works a lot less carefully than the other jeweler in town.
- We
like his work so much better.
- You'll
get your watch back all the faster.
The same process can be used to downplay the
degree:
- The
weather this week has been somewhat better.
- He
approaches his schoolwork a little less industriously than his
brother does.
And
sometimes a set phrase, usually an informal noun phrase, is used for this
purpose:
- He
arrived a whole lot sooner than we expected.
- That's
a heck of a lot better.
If the intensifier very accompanies
the superlative, a determiner is also required:
- She
is wearing her very finest outfit for the interview.
- They're
doing the very best they can.
Occasionally, the comparative or superlative
form appears with a determiner and the thing being modified is understood:
- Of
all the wines produced in Connecticut, I like this one the most.
- The
quicker you finish this project, the better.
- Of
the two brothers, he is by far the faster.
Authority for this section: A University
Grammar of English by Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum. Longman Group:
Essex, England. 1993. Used with permission.
Less versus Fewer
|
When making a comparison between quantities
we often have to make a choice between the words fewer and less.
Generally, when we're talking about countable things, we use the word fewer;
when we're talking about measurable quantities that we cannot count, we use
the word less. "She had fewer chores, but she also had less
energy." The managers at our local Stop & Shop seem to have
mastered this: they've changed the signs at the so-called express lanes from
"Twelve Items or Less" to "Twelve Items or Fewer."
Whether that's an actual improvement, we'll leave up to you.
We do, however, definitely use less
when referring to statistical or numerical expressions:
- It's
less than twenty miles to Dallas.
- He's
less than six feet tall.
- Your
essay should be a thousand words or less.
- We
spent less than forty dollars on our trip.
- The
town spent less than four percent of its budget on snow removal.
In these situations, it's possible to
regard the quantities as sums of countable measures.
|
Taller than I / me ??
|
When making a comparison with
"than" do we end with a subject form or object form, "taller
than I/she" or "taller than me/her." The correct response is
"taller than I/she." We are looking for the subject form: "He
is taller than I am/she is tall." (Except we leave out the verb in the
second clause, "am" or "is.") Some good writers, however,
will argue that the word "than" should be allowed to function as a
preposition. If we can say "He is tall like me/her," then (if
"than" could be prepositional like like) we should be able
to say, "He is taller than me/her." It's an interesting argument,
but — for now, anyway — in formal, academic prose, use the subject form in
such comparisons.
We also want to be careful in a sentence
such as "I like him better than she/her." The "she" would
mean that you like this person better than she likes him; the "her"
would mean that you like this male person better than you like that female
person. (To avoid ambiguity and the slippery use of than, we could
write "I like him better than she does" or "I like him better
than I like her.")
|
More
than / over ??
|
In the United States, we usually use
"more than" in countable numerical expressions meaning "in
excess of" or "over." In England, there is no such
distinction. For instance, in the U.S., some editors would insist on
"more than 40,000 traffic deaths in one year," whereas in the UK,
"over 40,000 traffic deaths" would be acceptable. Even in the U.S.,
however, you will commonly hear "over" in numerical expressions of
age, time, or height: "His sister is over forty; she's over six feet
tall. We've been waiting well over two hours for her."
|
The Order of Adjectives in a Series
It would take a linguistic philosopher to
explain why we say "little brown house" and not "brown little
house" or why we say "red Italian sports car" and not
"Italian red sports car." The order in which adjectives in a series
sort themselves out is perplexing for people learning English as a second
language. Most other languages dictate a similar order, but not necessarily the
same order. It takes a lot of practice with a language before this order
becomes instinctive, because the order often seems quite arbitrary (if not
downright capricious). There is, however, a pattern. You will find many
exceptions to the pattern in the table below, but it is definitely important to
learn the pattern of adjective order if it is not part of what you naturally
bring to the language.
The categories in the following table can be
described as follows:
- Determiners
— articles and other limiters. See Determiners
- Observation
— postdeterminers and limiter adjectives (e.g., a real hero, a perfect
idiot) and adjectives subject to subjective measure (e.g., beautiful,
interesting)
- Size
and Shape
— adjectives subject to objective measure (e.g., wealthy, large, round)
- Age
— adjectives denoting age (e.g., young, old, new, ancient)
- Color
— adjectives denoting color (e.g., red, black, pale)
- Origin
— denominal adjectives denoting source of noun (e.g., French, American,
Canadian)
- Material
— denominal adjectives denoting what something is made of (e.g., woolen,
metallic, wooden)
- Qualifier
— final limiter, often regarded as part of the noun (e.g., rocking chair,
hunting cabin, passenger car, book cover)
THE ROYAL ORDER OF ADJECTIVES
|
Determiner
|
Observation
|
Physical Description
|
Origin
|
Material
|
Qualifier
|
Noun
|
|
Size
|
Shape
|
Age
|
Color
|
|
A
|
beautiful
|
|
|
Old
|
|
Italian
|
|
touring
|
Car
|
an
|
expensive
|
|
|
Antique
|
|
|
silver
|
|
Mirror
|
four
|
gorgeous
|
|
long-
stemmed
|
|
red
|
|
silk
|
|
Roses
|
her
|
|
|
short
|
|
black
|
|
|
|
Hair
|
our
|
|
big
|
|
Old
|
|
English
|
|
|
Sheepdog
|
those
|
|
|
square
|
|
|
|
wooden
|
hat
|
Boxes
|
that
|
dilapidated
|
little
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hunting
|
Cabin
|
several
|
|
enormous
|
|
Young
|
|
American
|
|
basketball
|
Players
|
some
|
delicious
|
|
|
|
|
Thai
|
|
|
Food
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This chart is probably too wide to print on
a standard piece of paper. If you click HERE,
you will get a one-page duplicate of this chart, which you can print out on a
regular piece of paper.
|
It would be folly, of course, to run more
than two or three (at the most) adjectives together. Furthermore, when
adjectives belong to the same class, they become what we call coordinated
adjectives, and you will want to put a comma between them: the inexpensive,
comfortable shoes. The rule for inserting the comma works this way: if you
could have inserted a conjunction — and or but — between the two
adjectives, use a comma. We could say these are "inexpensive but
comfortable shoes," so we would use a comma between them (when the
"but" isn't there). When you have three coordinated adjectives,
separate them all with commas, but don't insert a comma between the last
adjective and the noun (in spite of the temptation to do so because you often
pause there):
a popular, respected, and good looking
student
See the section on Commas for additional help in punctuating coordinated
adjectives.
Capitalizing
Proper Adjectives
When an adjective owes its origins to a
proper noun, it should probably be capitalized. Thus we write about Christian
music, French fries, the English Parliament, the Ming Dynasty, a Faulknerian
style, Jeffersonian democracy. Some periods of time have taken on the status of
proper adjectives: the Nixon era, a Renaissance/Romantic/Victorian poet (but a
contemporary novelist and medieval writer). Directional and seasonal adjectives
are not capitalized unless they're part of a title:
We took the northwest route during the spring
thaw. We stayed there until the town's annual Fall Festival of Small
Appliances.
When the definite article, the, is
combined with an adjective describing a class or group of people, the resulting
phrase can act as a noun: the poor, the rich, the oppressed, the homeless, the
lonely, the unlettered, the unwashed, the gathered, the dear departed. The
difference between a Collective Noun (which is usually regarded as singular but
which can be plural in certain contexts) and a collective adjective is that the
latter is always plural and requires a plural verb:
- The
rural poor have been ignored by the media.
- The
rich of Connecticut are responsible.
- The
elderly are beginning to demand their rights.
- The
young at heart are always a joy to be around.
Adjectival
Opposites
The opposite or the negative aspect of an
adjective can be formed in a number of ways. One way, of course, is to find an
adjective to mean the opposite — an antonym. The opposite of beautiful
is ugly, the opposite of tall is short. A thesaurus can
help you find an appropriate opposite. Another way to form the opposite of an
adjective is with a number of prefixes. The opposite of fortunate is unfortunate,
the opposite of prudent is imprudent, the opposite of considerate
is inconsiderate, the opposite of honorable is dishonorable,
the opposite of alcoholic is nonalcoholic, the opposite of being
properly filed is misfiled. If you are not sure of the spelling
of adjectives modified in this way by prefixes (or which is the appropriate
prefix), you will have to consult a dictionary, as the rules for the selection
of a prefix are complex and too shifty to be trusted. The meaning itself can be
tricky; for instance, flammable and inflammable mean the same thing.
A third means for creating the opposite of an
adjective is to combine it with less or least to create a
comparison which points in the opposite direction. Interesting shades of
meaning and tone become available with this usage. It is kinder to say that
"This is the least beautiful city in the state." than it is to say
that "This is the ugliest city in the state." (It also has a slightly
different meaning.) A candidate for a job can still be worthy and yet be
"less worthy of consideration" than another candidate. It's
probably not a good idea to use this construction with an adjective that is
already a negative: "He is less unlucky than his brother," although
that is not the same thing as saying he is luckier than his brother. Use the
comparative less when the comparison is between two things or people;
use the superlative least when the comparison is among many things or
people.
- My
mother is less patient than my father.
- Of
all the new sitcoms, this is my least favorite show.
Some
Adjectival Problem Children
Good versus Well
|
In both casual speech and formal writing,
we frequently have to choose between the adjective good and the adverb well. With most verbs, there is no
contest: when modifying a verb, use the adverb.
He swims well.
He knows only too well who the
murderer is.
However, when using a linking verb or a verb that has to do with the five
human senses, you want to use the adjective instead.
How are you? I'm feeling good, thank
you.
After a bath, the baby smells so good.
Even after my careful paint job, this room
doesn't look good.
Many careful writers, however, will use well
after linking verbs relating to health, and this is perfectly all right. In
fact, to say that you are good or that you feel good usually
implies not only that you're OK physically but also that your spirits are
high.
"How are you?"
"I am well, thank you."
|
Bad versus Badly
|
When your cat died (assuming you loved your
cat), did you feel bad or badly? Applying the same rule that
applies to good versus well, use the adjective form after verbs
that have to do with human feelings. You felt bad. If you said you
felt badly, it would mean that something was wrong with your faculties
for feeling.
|
|
Other
Adjectival Considerations
Review the section on Compound Nouns and Modifiers for the formation of modifiers created when
words are connected: a four-year-old child, a nineteenth-century novel, an
empty-headed fool.
Review the section on Possessives for a distinction between possessive forms
and "adjectival labels." (Do you belong to a Writers Club or a
Writers' Club?)
Adjectives
that are really Participles, verb forms with -ing and -ed
endings, can be troublesome for some students. It is one thing to be a frightened
child; it is an altogether different matter to be a frightening child.
Do you want to go up to your professor after class and say that you are confused
or that you are confusing? Generally, the -ed ending means that
the noun so described ("you") has a passive relationship with
something — something (the subject matter, the presentation) has bewildered you
and you are confused. The -ing ending means that the noun
described has a more active role — you are not making any sense so you are
confusing (to others, including your professor).
The -ed ending modifiers are often
accompanied by prepositions (these are not the only choices):
- We
were amazed at all the circus animals.
- We
were amused by the clowns.
- We
were annoyed by the elephants.
- We
were bored by the ringmaster.
- We
were confused by the noise.
- We
were disappointed by the motorcycle daredevils.
- We
were disappointed in their performance.
- We
were embarrassed by my brother.
- We
were exhausted from all the excitement.
- We
were excited by the lion-tamer.
- We
were excited about the high-wire act, too.
- We
were frightened by the lions.
- We
were introduced to the ringmaster.
- We
were interested in the tent.
- We
were irritated by the heat.
- We
were opposed to leaving early.
- We
were satisfied with the circus.
- We
were shocked at the level of noise under the big tent.
- We
were surprised by the fans' response.
- We
were surprised at their indifference.
- We
were tired of all the lights after a while.
- We
were worried about the traffic leaving the parking lot.
A- Adjectives
The most common of the so-called a-
adjectives are ablaze, afloat, afraid, aghast, alert, alike, alive, alone,
aloof, ashamed, asleep, averse, awake, aware. These adjectives will primarily
show up as predicate adjectives (i.e., they come after a linking verb).
- The
children were ashamed.
- The
professor remained aloof.
- The
trees were ablaze.
Occasionally, however, you will find a-
adjectives before the word they modify: the alert patient, the aloof
physician. Most of them, when found before the word they modify, are themselves
modified: the nearly awake student, the terribly alone scholar. And a-
adjectives are sometimes modified by "very much": very much afraid,
very much alone, very much ashamed, etc.