Adjectives answer the following questions about nouns or pronouns: which one, what kind, how many.
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
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The red fire truck lost water pressure. (Which
fire truck? The red one.) Easy, right?
Numbers
Colors
A, an, the
Pick the adjectives out of the following sentences:
With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of
what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky
red and yellow and black.
Some wounded thing, by the evidence a large animal, had thrashed about in the underbrush; the jungle weeds
were crushed down and the moss was lacerated; one patch of weeds was stained crimson. A small, glittering
object not far away caught Rainsford’s eye and he picked it up. It was an empty cartridge.
able, ible
capable of (adjective suffix)
ac, ic
like, pertaining to
acious, iciousfull of
portable able to be carried, legible able to
be read
cardiac pertaining to the heart,
aquatic pertaining to the water
audacious full of daring, avaricious full of
greed
al
pertaining to
maniacal insane, portal doorway, logical
pertaining to logic
ant, ent
full of
eloquent pertaining to fluid, effective
speech, suppliant pleader, verdant green
ary
like, connected with
dictionary book connected with words,
honorary
escent
becoming (adjective suffix)
evanescent tending to vanish
pubescent arriving at puberty
fic
making, doing (adjective suffix)
terrific arousing great fear
iferous
producing, bearing (adjective suffix)pestiferous carrying disease
vociferous having a loud voice
il, ile
ive
pertaining to, capable of
adjective suffix)civil polite
like (adjective suffix)
oid
resembling, like (adjective suffix)
quantitative concerned with number or
volume
ovoid like an egg
anthropoid resembling a human being
ose
full of (adjective suffix)
verbose full of words
ous
full of (adjective suffix)
nauseous full of nausea ludicrous foolish
Participles:
 present or past tense verbs
 not part of a verb phrase with a helping verb
 function as an adjective, describing a noun or pronoun
Demonstrative adjectives
 This that these those
 Occur before a noun
 If not followed by a noun, then a pronoun
Adjectives can appear before a noun
 Red death, two girls, black podium
Adjectives can appear after a noun and linking verb in the predicate:
predicate adjectives
 The flower smells good.
Prepositional phrases can function as adjectives in sentences.
 The flower by the stairs is wilting.
o by the stairs tells which flower
 The horse with the white blaze is beautiful.
o with a white blaze tells which horse
Adjective subordinate clauses
 Adjective subordinate clauses modify nouns or pronouns
 Clue words are relative pronouns: who whom whose which that