Brief overview of Descriptive Adjectives
Adjectives are an important part of speech in the English language. There are many kinds of adjectives in the English language. These are the words that are used to describe nouns. To put it more simply, adjectives describe the state, action, or quality that nouns refer to. There are four main types of adjectives which are-
Descriptive Adjectives
Adjectives of quantity
Demonstrative adjectives
Pronominal adjectives
Descriptive Adjectives add meaning to the noun that it modifies. This type of adjective describes a noun in detail by giving an attribute to that particular word. They usually express things that are observable through the five senses i.e. touch, taste, sight, smell, and sound.
All grammar rules for forming the Descriptive adjective
They are the largest class of the four types of adjectives mentioned above. The descriptive objectives can be classified into three main categories-
Simple Adjectives
This is the most basic type of descriptive adjective. They generally function to express the quality, feelings, quantity, taste, time, sound, appearance, color, shape, size, age, and material
e.g.:
Crazy, black, young, giant, excited, weary, rainy, small, harsh, purple, terrible, filthy etc
Compound Adjectives
These are the adjectives that are formed when two words are combined to create a descriptive adjective. The two words in a compound adjective are connected with a hyphen.
e.g.:
Short-tempered, self-centered, two-sided, tight-fisted, broken-hearted, high-heeled etc
Proper Adjectives
These are the descriptive adjectives that are derived from proper nouns. Generally, the nations, regions, and religions are some of the common qualities described by proper adjectives.
E.g.:
Canadian, Cuban, Turkish, Hindu, Spanish, English, French, Antarctic, Pacific, Chinese etc
1. Quality – size – age – color – qualifier
e.g.: I like that really small new blue fresh clock that is always there in the shop
2. Opinion – age – origin
e.g.: A wonderful old German car
3. Size – age – color – purpose
e.g.: My big new gray motorbike
4. Opinion – color – material
e.g.: A terrible orange plastic ornament
5. Size – shape – color
e.g.: A big rectangular red box
All situations the Descriptive Adjectives are used in
While using multiple descriptive adjectives in a sentence, there is a particular order of adjectives that should be followed as below-
Adjectives that describe opinion precede the adjectives that describe the color, size, shape, etc.
e.g.: ‘The ugly blue couch is placed in the room’ is preferred as compared to ‘The blue ugly couch is placed in the room’
2. Descriptive adjectives are generally used in a sentence that is more general in nature as compared to those that are more specific.
e.g.: ‘The big Chinese souvenir is hanging on the wall’ is preferable as compared to ‘The Chinese big souvenir is hanging on the wall’
