ADJECTIVES

An adjective is a word used to modify—describe, restrict, or somehow qualify— nouns and pronouns. Adjectives modify only nouns and pronouns; they do not modify other adjectives, verbs, or adverbs. (That’s what adverbs are for.)

His brother was the serious student.

Here, serious is the adjective describing the noun student.

That was me … silly me.

In this example, silly is the adjective describing the pronoun me.

Some adjectives are simple and common, single-syllable words.

bad ,left and true
bright, new and weird
dark, old and wrong
dumb, right and young
false and strange
good and stupid

Colors can be used as adjectives, too.

black, green and teal
blue, purple and white
brown, red and yellow

Many adjectives are created simply by adding certain suffi xes to words that were previously nouns or verbs.

Descriptive Adjectives

Descriptive adjectives more defi nitively and fully identify a characteristic of a noun.

The cold fl oor
A beautiful girl

In these examples, without the addition of the adjective, the reader would still know that a fl oor and a girl were being discussed. However, the addition of an adjective provides a better idea of what sort of fl oor and girl are being discussed

Limiting Adjectives

Limiting adjectives narrow the scope of a noun to some degree. This classification includes the following kinds of adjectives:

Possessive adjectives show possession or ownership: my, her, his, our, their, your.

This is my book.

Numbering adjectives identify number or amount: many, nineteen, several, three.
Sixteen girls at the party had brown hair.