Language/English/Grammar/How-do-you-use-Adjectives

How do you use Adjectives in English?

You can use adjectives in the ways suggested below.

Use two or more adjectives to describe a noun in greater detail

E.g.

• small grey cat,

• desperate, brazen thief

Show comparison and contrast using parallel phrases such as ‘not only … but also’, ‘as … as’

E.g.

• Beatrice is not only intelligent, but also hardworking.

• Tom is as strong as his father.

Use adjectives to express opinions

E.g.

• What a boring play! The director was unimaginative.

Examples

Adjectives describe many different things, such as size, shape, colour, quality, origin or nationality, material, and the speaker’s or writer’s opinion.

It is common to find two or more adjectives before a noun. However, they cannot be strung together randomly; rather, they follow a fairly strict order, from top to bottom:

Observation/Opinion  :	lovely, boring, beautiful, fascinating
Size :	petite, gigantic, high, long
Shape :	round, square, oval, circular
Age :	old, new, young
Colour :	red, blue, green, yellow
Nationality/Origin  :	Chinese, American, British, Christian
Material :	gold, silver, silk, linen

E.g.

• small old wooden box

• beautiful colourful Turkish rug

Sources

https://www.languagecouncils.sg/goodenglish/-/media/sgem/document/additional-sgem-resources/pdf/grammar-rules-_-speak-good-english-movement.pdf?la=en

Related Lessons

• Collocations with do
• Difference between Mood Tense Voice
• ‘Differ with’ and ‘Differ from’
• The Possessive Case
• Positions of Adjectives in Sentences
• GERUNDS
• More on Omission
• INFINITIVES
• Tenses
• Abstract nouns and concrete nouns