Adjective

Adjective
• Adjectives are words that describe or modify

other words, making your writing and
speaking much more specific, and a whole lot
more interesting.
• Words like small, blue, and sharp are
descriptive, and they are all examples of
adjectives.
• Because adjectives are used to identify or
quantify individual people and unique things,
they are usually positioned before
the noun or pronoun that they modify.
• Some sentences contain multiple adjectives.
In the following examples, the highlighted
words are adjectives:
• They live in a big, beautiful house
• Since it’s a hot day, Lisa is wearing a sleeveless
• The mountaintops are covered in sparkling
• On her birthday, Brenda received
an antique vase filled with fragrant
Types of Adjectives
1. Articles
There are only three articles, and all of them are
adjectives: a, an, and the.
Because they are used to discuss non-specific things and
people, a and an are called indefinite articles.
For example:
 I’d like a banana
 Let’s go on an adventure
• Neither one of these sentences names a
specific banana or a certain adventure. Without
more clarification, any banana or adventure
will do.
The word the is called the definite article. It’s the
only definite article, and it is used to indicate very
specific people or things:
 Please give me a banana. I’d like the one
with the green stem.
 Let’s go on an adventure. The Grand Canyon
mule ride sounds perfect!
2. Possessive Adjectives
• As the name indicates, possessive adjectives are used
to indicate possession. They are: My, Your, His, Her,
Its, Our, and Their
• Possessive adjectives also function as possessive
pronouns.
3. Demonstrative Adjectives
Like the article the, demonstrative adjectives are used to
indicate or demonstrate specific people, animals, or
things. These, those, this and that are demonstrative adjectives.
 These books belong on that
 This movie is my favorite.
 Please put those cookies on the blue plate.

4. Coordinate Adjectives
• Coordinate adjectives are separated
with commas or the word and, and appear one
after another to modify the same noun.
• The adjectives in the phrase bright, sunny day
and long and dark night are coordinate
adjectives.
• In phrases with more than two coordinate
adjectives, the word and always appears before
the last one; for example: The sign had big, bold,
and bright letters.
Be careful, because some adjectives that appear in a
series are not coordinate.
• In the phrase green delivery truck, the
words green and delivery are not separated by a
comma because green modifies the
phrase delivery truck.
• To eliminate confusion when determining
whether a pair or group of adjectives is
coordinate, just insert the word and between
them.
• If and works, then the adjectives are
coordinate and need to be separated with a
comma.
5. Numbers Adjectives
• When they’re used in sentences, numbers are
almost always adjectives. You can tell that a
number is an adjective when it answers the
question “How many?”
The stage coach was pulled by a team of six
He ate 23 hotdogs during the contest, and was
sick afterwards.
6.Interrogative Adjectives
• There are three interrogative adjectives: which,
what, and whose.
• Like all other types of adjectives, interrogative
adjectives modify nouns.
• As you probably know, all three of these words
are used to ask questions.
 Which option sounds best to you?
 What time should we go?
 Whose socks are those
7. Indefinite Adjectives
• Like the articles a and an, indefinite adjectives
are used to discuss non-specific things.
• You might recognize them, since they’re
formed from indefinite pronouns.
• The most common indefinite adjectives
are any, many, no, several, and few
Examples
Do we have any peanut butter?
Grandfather has been retired for many
There are no bananas in the fruit bowl.
I usually read the first few pages of a book
before I buy it.
We looked at several cars before deciding on
the best one for our family.
8. Attributive Adjectives
• Attributive adjectives talk about specific traits,
qualities, or features – in other words, they
are used to discuss attributes.
• There are different kinds of attributive
adjectives:
 Observation adjectives such as real, perfect, best,
interesting, beautiful or cheapest can indicate
value or talk about subjective measures.
 Size and shape adjectives talk about measurable,
objective qualities including specific physical
properties. Some examples include small, large,
square, round, poor, wealthy, slow and
 Age adjectives denote specific ages in numbers,
as well as general ages. Examples are old, young,
new, five-year-old, and
 Color adjectives are exactly what they sound like – they’re
adjectives that indicate color. Examples include pink,
yellow, blue, and
 Origin adjectives indicate the source of the noun, whether
it’s a person, place, animal or thing. Examples include
American, Canadian, Mexican, French.
 Material adjectives denote what something is made of.
Some examples include cotton, gold, wool, and
 Qualifier adjectives are often regarded as part of a noun.
They make nouns more specific; examples include log
cabin, luxury car, andpillow cover.

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Adjective

• Adjectives are words that describe or modify

• Possessive adjectives also function as possessive

 Please put those cookies on the blue plate.

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