Adjectives: 5 Types of Adjectives with Definition & Useful Examples

Adjectives in English! What is an adjective? The following lessons provide you with different types of adjectives and explain how to use them in English sentences with ESL printable infographic.

What are Adjectives?

Adjectives are words that are used to describe (what kind of?) nouns and pronouns and to quantify (how much of?) and identify (which one?) them. In a nutshell, Adjectives are what define nouns and give them characteristics to differentiate them from other nouns. For example:

• He was wearing a blue shirt.

Here ‘blue’ is an adjective as it is describing the noun ‘shirt’ by answering the question ‘what kind of shirt?’

• There are seven rooms in the house.

Here ‘Seven’ is also an adjective as it’s telling the quantity/the number of the noun ‘rooms’, answering the question ‘how many rooms?’.

Types of Adjectives

There are different types of adjectives based upon their effect on a noun and what do they tell about the noun. There are five categories of adjectives:

Adjectives of Quality

What are adjectives of quality?

These adjectives are used to describe the nature of a noun. They give an idea about the characteristics of the noun by answering the question ‘what kind’: Honest, Kind, Large, Bulky, Beautiful, Ugly, etc. For example:

• New Delhi is a large city with many historical monuments.
• Sarah is a beautiful woman.
• I’d like you to give me an honest answer.
• I feel really fat and ugly today.
• He carried a very bulky package on the bus.

Adjectives of Quantity

What are adjectives of quantity?

These adjectives help to show the amount or the approximate amount of the noun or pronoun. These adjectives do not provide exact numbers; rather they tell us the amount of the noun in relative or whole terms: All, Half, Many, Few, Little, No, Enough, Great, etc. For example:

• They have finished most of the rice.
• Many people came to visit the fair.

Adjectives of Number

What are adjectives of number?

These adjectives are used to show the number of nouns and their place in an order. There are three different sections within adjectives of number; they are:

Definite Numeral Adjective

Those which clearly denote an exact number of nouns or the order of the noun.

• One, Two, Twenty, Thirty-Three, etc. also known as Cardinals.
• First, Second, Third, Seventh, etc. also known as Ordinals.

Indefinite Numeral Adjective

Those adjectives that do not give an exact numerical amount but just give a general idea of the amount.

• Some, Many, Few, Any, Several, All, etc.
  E.g.: There were many people present at the meeting.

Distributive Numeral Adjective

Those adjectives that are used to refer to individual nouns within the whole amount.

• Either, Neither, Each, Another, Other, etc.
  E.g: Taxes have to be paid by every employed citizen.

Demonstrative Adjectives

What are demonstrative adjectives?

These adjectives are used to point out or indicate a particular noun or pronoun using the adjectives: This, That, These and Those.

• That bag belongs to Neil.
• Try using this paintbrush in art class.
• I really like those shoes.
• These flowers are lovely.

Interrogative Adjectives

What are interrogative adjectives?

These adjectives are used to ask questions about nouns or in relation to nouns, they are: Where, What, Which and Whose.

• Where did he say he was going?
• What assignment did I miss out on?
• Which is your favorite author?
• Whose pen is this?

In some instances, we find that we need to use more than one adjective to describe a noun in a satisfactory manner. In these cases, commas are used to separate the adjectives but some series of adjectives do not require a comma. Therefore, we need to know the difference between Coordinate and Non-coordinate Adjectives:

Coordinate Adjectives

Are those words which can be re-arranged in the series easily and are still grammatically sound. This kind of series makes use of commas. This series can also insert ‘and’ between them and still be correct.

• She was a kind, generous, loving human being.
• She was a generous, loving, kind human being.
• She was a loving, kind and generous human being.

Here we can see that all three sentences are grammatically correct. In this case, the adjectives only need to be separated by commas.

Non-coordinate Adjectives

These are those adjectives which cannot be rearranged in the series. These do not use commas to separate the adjectives. Also, this kind of series does not make sense if we insert ‘and’ between them.

• She has two energetic playful dogs.
• She has playful two energetic dogs.
• She has energetic and playful and two dogs.

Here we see that only the first sentence makes sense and is grammatically correct. The second and third ones are incorrect. Hence, the sentence uses non-coordinate adjectives and does not need commas.

Comparative and Superlative Adjectives

When we want to compare two or more nouns using adjectives, we use the comparative and superlative forms of the adjective to show the comparison between the nouns.

E.g. Honey is sweet, sugar is sweeter but victory is the sweetest.

In this sentence, we are comparing the three nouns using the positive, comparative and superlative forms of the word ‘sweet’.

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Order of Adjectives

There are certain rules regarding the placement of different kinds of adjectives in a sentence. The general order of adjective is:

1. Determiners
2. Observations/Quantity and Opinion
3. Size
4. Age
5. Shape
6. Colour
7. Origin
8. Material
9. Qualifier

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Types of Adjectives | Infographic

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Adjective Quiz