Adjectives

What Are Adjectives? (with Examples)

An adjective is a word that describes or modifies a noun or a pronoun by providing additional information about its attributes, such as color, size, shape, quantity, or condition. Adjectives often answer questions like "what kind?", "how many?", or "which one?" and can be used before the noun they modify (attributive position) or after a linking verb, such as "be" (predicative position). Examples include "red," "happy," "large," and "clever."

Examples of Adjectives in Sentences

Positioning Adjectives

Adjectives help us describe and give more detail about nouns (people, places, things). Adjectives can be position before or after nouns.

Adjectives Before Nouns: Attributive Position

When adjectives are placed right before the nouns they describe, they are in the "attributive" position. They give direct and clear details about the noun.

In these examples, the adjectives are highlighted and the nouns they modified are in bold:

Adjectives After Verbs: Predicative Position

Sometimes, adjectives come after verbs, especially verbs like "is," "was," "becomes," etc. This placing is known as the "predicative" position. The adjective provides more info about the subject of the sentence, not directly, but after a verb.

In these examples, the adjectives are highlighted and the nouns they modified are in bold:

Compound Adjectives

Compound adjectives are formed when two or more words come together to jointly describe a noun. A compound adjective is often hyphenated to avoid confusion or ambiguity. For example, in the phrase "a well-known actor," "well-known" is a compound adjective.

Adjective Phrases

An adjective phrase is a group of words headed by an adjective that describes a noun. Most often, adjectives are accompanied by modifiers like adverbs (e.g., "very," "extremely") and prepositional phrases (e.g., "...with me," "...about the dog").

In these examples, the head adjectives are underlined, the adjective phrases are highlighted, and the nouns they modified are in bold:

Adjective Clauses

An adjective clause is a multi-word adjective that includes a subject and a verb. Adjective clauses come after the nouns they describe. An adjective clause is headed by a relative pronoun (e.g., "who," "which," "that").

In these examples, the adjective clauses are highlighted and the nouns they modified are in bold: Notice that the highlighted texts all contain a subject and a verb. This is the reason they are clauses.

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See Also

What is a phrase? What is a clause? What are nouns? What are noun clauses? What is the subject of a sentence? What is an object? What is a complement? What is a direct object? What is the object of a preposition? Glossary of grammatical terms