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What are Adjectives
Adjectives
- Adjectives give us more information about nouns (people, places, or things).
- We sometimes say that they "qualify" or "modify" nouns.
- They might give a physical description of a person (blonde, short) or tell about someone's personality or abilities (clever, quick-tempered).
- Some adjectives tell about places (near, far), things (plastic, heavy, ugly), and even about actions or activities (boring, fun, long).
- Adjectives can also give us information about how many or how much of the noun there is (many, more, few).
- Using adjectives in our speech and writing helps make our meaning more clear and vivid.
For example:
- Lucy is tall and strong, but not actually very athletic.
tall and strong give a physical description; athletic describes her personality
- The new movie theater has many comfortable seats!
new describes the movie theater; comfortable describes the seats, and many tells us the quantity
- The thoughtful students brought their teacher ten shiny red apples.
thoughtful describes the students; shiny and red tell about the quality of apples, and ten tells us the quantity of apples
An adjective can be a single word, or you can have an adjective phrase or clause.
For example:
"Wet" and "soggy" are adjectives describing the playground. "Uncomfortable" tells us how it would feel to play on the playground.
- Mary decided it would be uncomfortable to play on the wet, soggy playground.
- Cookies that are fresh from the oven smell so good!
"That are fresh from the oven" is an adjective clause telling what kind of cookie
Summary
- Adjectives give us more information about nouns (people, places, or things).
- We sometimes say that they "qualify" or "modify" nouns.
- They describe the noun or give us information about how many or how much of the noun there is.
- An adjective can be a single word, or you can have an adjective phrase or clause.
