Adjectives: Definition and Types

Adjectives

Adjectives are the words that describe the quality and quantity of nouns. They are information gatherers. They provide further information about the size, shape, age, colour, origin, opinion or material of an object. They make writing and speaking more specific.

Definition of Adjective

An adjective describes, identifies or quantifies a noun or a pronoun. OR

Adjective is a word which is used to describe or modify nouns or pronouns.

Examples of Adjectives: Charming, gentle, tasty, dangerous, ten, red, more, fast, three, whole, American, this, that, my, our, some, each

List of Adjectives:

Types of Adjective

There are different types of adjective. An adjective may indicate quality, size, shape, duration, feelings, content and more about a noun or pronoun. The types of adjective are mentioned below.

Descriptive Adjectives

Descriptive adjectives are also called qualitative adjectives. They describe nouns and pronouns. They are used to express the size, colour or shape of a person, a thing, an animal or a place. Most of the adjectives belong to descriptive adjectives.

Examples of Descriptive Adjectives: Slow, fast, big, little, glad, joyful, sad, great, amazing,witty,amusing

Quantitative Adjectives

Quantitative adjectives provide information about the quantity of the nouns or pronouns.

Examples of Quantitative Adjectives: Some, many, much,any, little, a lot of, lots of, few, a few, several

Proper Adjectives

Proper adjectives are derived from proper nouns. They are always capitalized. Most of them identify people, places, languages or groups.

Examples of Proper Adjectives:

Proper noun: America

Proper adjective: American

Demonstrative Adjectives

Demonstrative adjectives are used to identify or express the relative position of a noun.

Examples of Demonstrative Adjectives: This, that, these, those

For singular and near nouns: This is used

For singular and far nouns: That is used

For plurals and near nouns: These is used

For plurals and far nouns: Those is used

Possessive Adjectives

Possessive adjective is an adjective which is used to show ownership of a noun.

Examples of Possessive Adjectives: My, your, his, her, its, our, your, their

This is her car.

Its teeth are so white.

Interrogative Adjectives

Interrogative adjectives are the adjectives that modify a noun by asking question. They are also called as interrogative determiners.

Examples of Interrogative Adjectives: Which, who, where

Indefinite Adjectives

An indefinite adjective describes a noun unspecifically. They provide unspecific information about a noun.

Examples of Indefinite Adjectives: Several, nobody, few, many, much, most, any, each, some

Compound Adjectives

A compound adjective is a multi-word adjective. These adjectives are made when two or more adjectives are joined together to describe the same noun. Compound adjectives are sometimes called as hyphenated adjectives. Mostly they are two words adjectives, however they can be longer than two words.

Examples of Compound Adjectives:

Alina is a quick-witted lady.

I saw record-breaking snow in Thandiani.

We were given three-week break.

Ahmer ignored the absent-minded person .

Cardinal Adjectives

Cardinal adjectives modify the noun by numbering it( stating how many).

Examples of Cardinal Adjectives: One, two, three, four

Ordinal Adjectives

An ordinal adjective shows the position of a noun in a series.

Examples of Ordinal Adjectives: First, second, third, fourth

Articles

An article is a word used to modify a noun. Articles are actually adjectives because they describe the nouns that they precede. There are two types of articles: definite and indefinite articles. A & An are called indefinite articles and The is considered as definite article.

Examples of Articles:

Definite article: The

Indefinite articles: A, An

Alina needs a book.

The movie is based on a real-life incident.

She want to be an engineer.

In the end, adjectives are very important as they make our writing special and precise. We use adjectives for clarity. Adjectives display the complete picture of a noun. They totally affect the meaning of a sentence. They make sentences more specific and more interesting for readers.