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Grammar & Punctuation/Parts of speech/4.6 Adjectives 1

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the learning centre

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Adjectives: 1

Adjectives have often been called “describing words”. In the following

phrases, the adjectives are underlined:

a black cat

a thin man with a bald head.

lucky old you!

You can add a great deal of extra interest and precision to your writing
by using well-chosen adjectives. Here is the beginning of a story with all
the adjectives removed:

A man walked into a shop. He leaned his elbows on the counter and
rang the bell. A girl came out of the doorway that led from the back
of the shop.

Now here is the same story with the adjectives put back (and underlined).
Notice how much easier it is to imagine the scene:

A huge, bearlike man walked into a deserted shop. He leaned his

elbows on the chipped plastic counter and rang the cracked bell. A
worried-looking girl came out of the curtained doorway that led from
the shadowy back of the shop.

PTO/…
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the learning centre
Grammar & Punctuation/Parts of speech/4.6 Adjectives 1

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Exercise 1
Make the following sentences more interesting by choosing a
sensible adjective from the brackets. Write the sentences
down, underlining the adjectives you have used.

1. The (bent, soggy) key jammed in the lock.

2. When McManus scored the goal, the crowd’s roar was (deafening, smooth).

3. The patient in the next bed wore (cracked, striped) pyjamas.

4. It was the (one-legged, overweight, wiry) athlete from Somalia who won the
marathon race.

5. You can hardly see the (orange, dark-green) tent against the leafy bushes
and trees.

6. The skin-diver disappeared from view in the (murky, clear) water.

7. Spread the glue evenly and press the two surfaces together while it is still
(coarse, tacky).

8. After taking the sleeping pill she will become (dingy, drowsy).

9. A window envelope has a rectangular cut-out, often covered by a

(transparent, tranquil) piece of plastic, through which the address can be
read.

10. My address book went into the washing machine, but most of the writing
is still (logical, legible, illegible) luckily.

PTO/…
2
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EA E

Grammar & Punctuation/Parts of speech/4.6 Adjectives 1

L

R
the learning centre

S
S
E

E
R VIC

Exercise 2
The story that follows has no adjectives in it. Make it more
interesting by writing out and adding suitable adjectives. If you
like, use some of the ones in the list at the foot of this page.
Underline the adjectives you add to the story ( places where you
might add an adjective are marked #)

A railway line ran alongside the # park where we used to play in the
# evenings and at # weekends. There was a # row of # posts with # wire strung
between them, an embankment on one side of the # fence and a
# path on the other. Beyond the # railway there were some # houses.
Sometimes we climbed the # embankment in search of # balls, but we never saw
anyone looking out of the # windows or opening the # doors into the # gardens.
Whoever lived there once, seemed to have gone away.

One # evening we decided to explore the houses. We wriggled under the

# fence, crossed the # line, and climbed a # wall. We dropped into a garden
belonging to one of the # houses. It was full of rubbish: # water tanks, # bricks,
# slates, # bags of cement, # tiles, car engines, gearboxes, # deck chairs, sofas
and # rolls of lino. Weeds, # brambles,
# nettles and # bushes grew everywhere among the # litter.

The # door at the back of the # house was locked, so we climbed in through a #
window. There was still some # glass in the # frame, so we had to take # care.
There was a # smell about the inside of the # house that seemed to tell us that
no-one had lived there for # years.

busy crowded summer uneven rusty

noisy ragged steep tall tattered
local abandoned empty lost grimy
curtainless stray battered electrified overgrown
dangerous broken warm rainy low
high damp burst smashed oily
dismantled mouldy framentary thick rank
small jagged rotting shattered musty