Adjectives: forms

Unlike in many other languages, adjectives in English do not change (agree) with the noun that they modify:

 All new foreign students are welcome to join the clubs and societies.

o Not: All new foreigns students …
 Every room was painted in different colours.
o Not: … in differents colours.

Identifying adjectives
There is no general rule for making adjectives. We know they are adjectives usually by what they do (their
function) in a sentence. However, some word endings (suffixes) are typical of adjectives.

suffix examples

-able, -ible comfortable, readable, incredible, invisible

-al, -ial comical, normal, musical, industrial, presidential

-ful beautiful, harmful, peaceful, wonderful

-ic classic, economic, heroic, romantic

-ical aeronautical, alphabetical, political

-ish British, childish, Irish, foolish

-ive, -ative active, alternative, creative, talkative

-less endless, motionless, priceless, timeless

-eous, -ious, -ous spontaneous, hideous, ambitious, anxious, dangerous, famous

-y angry, busy, wealthy, windy

Warning:
Adjectives ending in -ic and -ical often have different meanings:
 The economic policy of this government has failed.
A diesel car is usually more economical than a petrol one.
Order of adjectives
 When more than one adjective comes before a noun, the adjectives are normally in a particular order.
Adjectives which describe opinions or attitudes (e.g. amazing) usually come first, before more neutral,
factual ones (e.g. red):
o She was wearing an amazing red coat.
o Not: … red amazing coat

If we don’t want to emphasise any one of the adjectives, the most usual sequence of adjectives is:

order relating to examples

1 opinion unusual, lovely, beautiful
2 size big, small, tall
3 physical quality thin, rough, untidy
4 shape round, square, rectangular
5 age young, old, youthful
6 colour blue, red, pink
7 origin Dutch, Japanese, Turkish
8 material metal, wood, plastic
9 type general-purpose, four-sided, U-
shaped
10 purpose cleaning, hammering, cooking

1 6 8
It was made of a strange, green, metallic material.
2 4 8
It’s a long, narrow, plastic brush.
4 7 9
Panettone is a round, Italian, bread-like Christmas cake.
Here are some invented examples of longer adjective phrases. A noun phrase which included all these types
would be extremely rare.
1 2 3 5 6 7
She was a beautiful, tall, thin, young, black-haired, Scottish woman.
1 2 5 7
What an amazing, little, old, Chinese cup and saucer!
Adjectives joined by and
 When more than one adjective occurs after a verb such as be (a linking verb), the second last adjective
is normally connected to the last adjective by and:
 Home was always a warm, welcoming place. Now it is sad, dark and cold.
 And is less common when more than one adjective comes before the noun (e.g., a warm, welcoming
place). However, we can use and when there are two or more adjectives of the same type, or when
the adjectives refer to different parts of the same thing:
 It was a blue and green cotton shirt.