Degrees of Comparison. Adjectives describe nouns

Order of Adjectives

Adjectives describe nouns. They have the same form in the singular and plural, e.g. a beautiful girl – two beautiful girls.

There are two types of adjectives.

Opinion adjectives describe what we think of someone or something, e.g. beautiful, great, cheap, lovely.

Fact adjectives describe what someone or something really is, e.g. short, long, red, round. Opinion adjectives go before fact adjectives, e.g. You live in a nice big house.

When you use more than one adjective to express your opinion, an adjective with a more general meaning such as “ good ”, “ bad ”, “ nice ”, or “ lovely ” usually comes before an adjective with a more specific meaning.

It’s a nice, clean shirt.

If you use two or more fact adjectives, you normally put them in the following order:

Opinion adjectives	Fact adjectives	Noun
general	specific	size	length height weight	age	shape	colour	origin	material	purpose

1. Size (large, big, small)

2. Length, height, weight (heavy, light, long, tall, short)

3. Age (young, old, modern)

4. Shape (round, square, triangular)

5. Colour (red, blue)

6. Origin (Spanish, Chinese)

7. Material (leather, glass, wooden)

8. Purpose (used for/be about) (private, historical, writing).

Adjectives of character and emotion are used after adjectives of physical description, e.g. She is a tall shy girl.

You usually put comparative and superlative adjectives in front of other adjectives, e.g. This is the largest round table I’ve ever seen.

v The words fast, hard, late are both adjectives and adverbs. When they are used before nouns they are adjectives, when after verbs – they are adverbs:

Adjectives:	Adverbs:
Ann is a hard worker. He is late for school every morning. Jack is a very fast runner.	Ann works hard. He gets up late every morning. Jack can run very fast.

v There are many pairs of adjectives ending in –ing and –ed. Someone is –ed if something or someone is –ing. Or, if something is –ing, it makes you –ed.

Tom is bored because his job is boring.

Mary’s job is tiring, so she is tired.

Adjectives	Positive	Comparative (than)	Superlative (in/of)
of one syllable add -er/-est	short thin large	shorter thi nn er larger	the shortest the thi nn est the largest
of two syllables ending in -er, -le, -y, -ow add -er/-est	heavy shallow clever	heavier shallower cleverer	the heaviest the shallowest the cleverest
of two syllables with stress on the second syllable add-er/-est	polite severe	politer severer	the politest the severest
of two and more syllables take more/most	special attractive	more special more attractive	the most special the most attractive
ending in -ed and - ing take more/most	tired boring	more tired more boring	the most tired the most boring
used only predicatively take more/most	afraid aware	more afraid more aware	the most afraid the most aware

v Certain adjectives form their comparative and superlative in both ways, either by adding -er/-est to the positive form or taking more/most. Some of them are: clever, common, cruel, friendly, gentle, narrow, pleasant, polite, quiet, simple, stupid etc.

e.g. simple – simpler – the simplest or simple – more simple – the most simple

v Adjectives ending in mute -e drop it and add -er/-est:

e.g. whit e – whit er – the whit est

v Adjectives ending in -y after a consonant drop -y and add -ier/-iest:

e.g. happ y – happ ier – the happ iest

v In one syllable adjectives final consonants are doubled after short vowels:

e.g. fat – fa tt er – the fa tt est

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