An adjective is a describing word. It tells us what something looks like, feels like, smells like, tastes like, or sounds like. It will always describe a noun or pronoun to us.
Big, small, tall, short, smelly, yummy, delicious…...are all examples of adjectives.
- Ice cream is delicious. (Ice cream is the noun and delicious is the adjective)
- Building a snowman is fun. (Snowman is the noun, building is the verb, and fun is the adjective)
- Do you think video games are interesting? (Video games is the noun, and interesting is the adjective)
Adjectives can have positive or negative meanings.
| Positive adjectives | Negative adjectives |
|---|---|
| delicious | disgusting |
| kind | mean |
| happy | sad |
| flexible | stubborn |
| well | ill |
You can use more than one adjective to describe something. For example:
- Penguins are small, black and white, flightless birds.
- Chocolate is sweet, milky, and delicious.
Adjectives can describe:
- Quantity - how many
- Opinions - beautiful, interesting, silly
- Size - big, small
- Age - old, new
- Shape - round, ball, flat, square, cube
- Colour - red, yellow, pink
- Origin/Material - where it is from and what it is made of
- Purpose - what is can be used for
We usually use 2-3 adjectives to describe something and we must always remember the order that the adjectives go in.
| Quantity | Opinion | Size | Age | Shape | Colour | Origin | Purpose | Noun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | cute | little | brown | puppy. | ||||
| A dozen | old | round | green | tennis | balls. | |||
| An | interesting | French | birthday | cake. |