An adjective is a word like kind, happy, smart and intelligent. An adjective typically modifies a noun and denotes a temporary or permanent quality associated with that noun. For example, a smart boy is a boy who is distinguished from other boys by being smart.
Not all adjectives are used to denote a quality associated with a noun. For example, the adjective mere in ‘a mere child’ does not denote a quality of the child.
Adjectives come in a rainbow of flavors, but they have some rules and regulations when used for comparison. Like anything else, there are also some exceptions to those rules.
What are Adjectives? An adjective is a word that describes a person, place, or thing (nouns and pronouns), and they generally appear before the word they modify. The articles “a,” “an” and “the” are also adjectives. Nationality, religious affiliation and culture are “proper adjectives” and always have their first letter capitalized. They can be stacked as deeply as needed, but two or more adjectives require commas to separate them.
Adjectives are words or phrases “naming an attribute, added to or grammatically related to a noun to modify or describe it”. In short, adjectives are descriptive words. Many confuse them with adverbs, but adverbs cannot describe nouns and generally end in “-ly”.
Commonly Confused Adjectives with Explanations (2012)
Adjectives pose several problems because they often sound similar and mean similar things but are used with different nouns. These rules and examples will give English learners the insight to use what they already know about countable and non-countable nouns to select the appropriate adjectives quickly and effectively. Read on to learn the difference between many or much, a few or few, further and farther and many commonly confused adjectives.
