How To Know Whether A Word Is An Adjective

Adjectives are describing words. Here are a few tips to identify adjectives.

An adjective can exist in three forms: the positive, the comparative and the superlative. The word is probably an adjective, if you can add –er or –est to it. Or, if you can use more or most in front of it. The following words are all adjectives.

• Short / shorter / shortest
• Kind / kinder / kindest
• Soft / softer / softest
• Nice / nicer / nicest
• Fat / fatter / fattest
• Beautiful / more beautiful / most beautiful
• Tragic / more tragic / most tragic

Adjectives can also be used with degree modifiers like very, quite or pretty.

• I am very happy.
• He is quite handsome.
• That was a pretty disgusting experience.

Adjectives can be immediately followed by nouns.

• That was a difficult situation. (Here the adjective difficult goes in front of the noun situation.)

Exercise

Identify the adjectives in the following sentences.

1. She is a nice person.

2. Suman has such a sweet voice.

3. Megha is perhaps the most industrious woman I know.

4. Krishna is cleverer than most boys his age.

5. Amar has won a prestigious award.

6. Ann has a lovely voice.

Answers

Nice, sweet, industrious, cleverer, prestigious, lovely