What are Adjectives | Types of Adjectives Examples

What are Adjectives?

According to the most unambiguous adjective definition, it is a word that describes an attribute of a noun or modifies it. Adjectives help to describe the quality and quantity of a noun.

Adjective Examples

We usually position an adjective before a noun or a pronoun. Some common examples of adjectives are; big, small, ugly, sparkling, and antique.

Example 1

• We live in a house.

In this sentence, ‘house’ is a noun and there is no word describing its quality.

• We live in a big and beautiful house.

This next sentence contains adjective examples as ‘big and beautiful’; both these words describe the quality of the noun ‘house’.

Example 2

• She is reading a book.

This sentence does not describe the quality of the noun ‘book’.

• She is reading an interesting book.

In the sentence above use of the adjective ‘interesting’ describes the quality of the noun ‘book’.

Also, Read; List of adjectives

Types of Adjectives

As mentioned in the definition of the adjective, an adjective describes the quality and quantity of a noun. Adjectives are classified into different types as explained in the following section.

Possessive Adjectives

Possessive adjectives describe possession of the noun. Some of the examples of possessive adjectives include; my, our, your, his, her, its and their. Some sentences to indicate the possessive adjective examples are:

• This is my book.
• My dog is playing with the ball.
• Our car is out of fuel.

Articles as Adjective

As we all know there are three articles: a, an and the . These three articles are also adjectives. The articles a and an describe non-specific nouns whereas the use of the adds specificity to the noun. Following is the use of articles as adjectives,

• I’d like a cup of coffee.
• I want to buy the bag with black stripes.
• Let’s go on an adventure to the Grand Canyon.

Also, Read; How to use Articles in English grammar

Demonstrative Adjectives

Demonstrative adjectives are the words, these, those, this, and that, used to point towards a specific person or thing. The following examples will better explain the use of demonstrative adjectives,

• These books belong on the top shelf.
• This novel is my favorite.
• Put those biscuits back into the jar.

Coordinate Adjectives

Separating adjectives with a comma or the word and creates coordinate adjectives. Following are a few examples of coordinate adjectives.

• Yesterday was a bright and sunny day.
• The pond water was cold and murky.

Number Adjectives

Number adjectives describe the quantity of the noun and all numbers fall into the category of these adjectives. The words some, ample, enough, plenty etc. also fall into the category of number adjectives.

• The debate club has seven members.
• I have enough sugar.
• I packed ten sandwiches for the picnic.

Interrogative Adjectives

The words which, whose, and what are interrogative adjectives because these question words also modify nouns.

• What time are you leaving for the airport?
• Whose book is this?
• Which is the correct option?

Indefinite Adjective

Indefinite adjectives are used while discussing non-specific things and include words like, are, any, many, no, few, and several etc.

• Do we have any jam left?
• There are no apples in the bowl.
• I only read the first few lines of the article.

Attributive Adjectives

These are the words that describe the specific traits and qualities of a noun giving nouns their attributes.

• Shawn is the best football player.
• Silvia has grown to become a responsible person.
• Jane is an experienced surgeon.

FAQs

What are the adjective examples?

You can find a thousand words at your disposal to use as adjectives for describing nouns and an extensive list of adjectives examples can be generated. The examples are as follows,

Adjectives describing quantity

All, some, limited, countless, hundreds, six, plentiful, enough, several etc.

Adjectives describing the personality of a noun

Beautiful, lazy, shy, innocent, hardworking, rich, calm, careless, famous, aggressive, intelligent, evil, good etc.

Adjectives describing time and situation

Annual, regular, irregular, rapid, late, old, young, futuristic, daily, eternal, horrible, accidental, advantageous, optimal, nasty etc.

Comparative and superlative degree of adjectives

Tall, taller, tallest, smart, smarter, smartest, beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful, etc.

Following examples of adjectives can help in clarification,

• She is a hardworking student.
• Dave is better at soccer than his friend.
• Brown ate three sushi rolls.
• I want to buy that pretty dollhouse.

What is an adjective in English grammar?  

According to the definition of adjectives in English grammar, adjectives describe nouns such as the beautiful flowers were swaying in the wind. In this sentence, the word beautiful is an adjective and it is describing the noun flower. He bought a dozen eggs; the word dozen is an adjective that is describing the quantity of the noun eggs. According to the placement of adjectives in English grammar, we write an adjective before the noun.

How do you describe adjectives?

The definition of adjectives says that adjectives are words that modify nouns. Simply adjectives are the words that give qualities to nouns and also describe their quantity such as pretty girl, beautiful flower, naughty boy, or he ate two bananas etc.

How can you identify an adjective?

It is possible to identify adjectives in a sentence based on the position, the structure the adjectives occur in and their form. As the main function of an adjective is to modify a noun, we write to them before or after the noun. When we write an adjective before a noun it is preceded by an article. For example, “He is a good man” in this sentence the adjective good has been written before the noun and is preceded by the article a. The “woman is sick” here the adjective has been positioned after the noun.

The second way to identify an adjective is to look at the form of the adjective. In a sentence comparing two nouns, the adjectives contain the prefix “more” or “most” and the suffix “er” or “est”. Following are a few examples of adjectives used while comparing nouns

• The bluebird is more beautiful than the robin.
• She scored the highest marks among her classmates.
• He is the smartest boy in class.

Another way to identify adjectives is to look at the sentence structure in which the adjectives are occurring while comparing two or more nouns. In this case, you write the adjective in between, as-as, so as or not as.

• She is as smart as her brother.
• He is not as wise as his brother.
• She is not working as hard as she should.

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