What is an adjective? Examples and definition
An adjective is a word that adds information to a noun that the noun by itself does not already have, for example the words 'big', 'happy', or 'pink'.
Adjectives are one of the most important parts of speech in English. They are also relatively easy to learn, understand, and use correctly.
ℹ️ What is an adjective?
Adjectives add more information to (or modify or describe) nouns. For example, if I talk about an elephant, and I want to add more information to the noun elephant so that you have a clearer idea of this elephant I’m imagining, I could use the adjectives gray and large: the large, gray elephant.
We may think of adjectives as single words, but it’s helpful to realize that phrases and clauses can also serve the function of adding information to nouns.
For example, I could say that someone is singing funny songs. In this case, funny would be an adjective modifying songs. But what if I wrote The woman singing funny songs? In this case, you could call singing funny songs an adjective phrase, since it consists of two or more words, and it gives more information about the woman.
Similarly, I could choose to write The woman who is singing funny songs; in this case, who is singing funny songs could be considered an adjective clause (since it has a subject and a verb). Note: These constructions are also called relative clauses.
🗣️ Examples of adjectives
Here are some adjectives:
wonderful
big
pink
short
rambunctious
discombobulated
And here are the same adjectives used with nouns to modify them:
a wonderful party
not a big deal
pink unicorns
one short story
a couple of rambunctious kids
feeling discombobulated (N.B. This one is not used with a noun in this example, but it still functions as an adjective modifying a noun, probably a person.)
Adjective rules
Like all parts of speech, adjectives have general rules to follow, and of course, there will always arise exceptions to these rules!
Here are the most important rules to know about adjectives:
Adjectives are optional in sentences; you can write sentences with adjectives or without them; you can use as many as you want, from zero to many more. This grammatical optionality is important sometimes, for example, with transitive and ditransitive verbs (such as eat and put, respectively).
Adjectives usually precede the nouns they modify, though there are many exceptions (called postpositive adjectives), such as something wonderful or She is curious about all things Brazilian.
Adjective order: When two or more adjectives are used, the adjectives will follow a certain ordering of those adjectives. For example, *Red little house is ungrammatical; Little red house is standard. Adjective order can actually get a bit complex, but in general, adjectives proceed from abstract/general to concrete/specific, i.e., the first adjectives are more specific and concrete, while the later adjectives are more abstract or broader in meaning.
📚️ Most common mistakes: Adjective vs. adverb
Some native speakers occasionally use adjectives where adverbs would be more grammatically correct.
For example:
*Carl speaks real good.
would be considered ungrammatical, though the utterance is perfectly understandable.
Instead of using the adjectives real and good, we should use the adverbs really and well in this sentence:
Carl speaks really well.