What is an adjective

An adjective modifies a noun or a pronoun by describing, identifying, or quantifying words. An adjective usually precedes the noun or the pronoun which it modifies.

 In the following examples, the highlighted words are adjectives:

The truck-shaped balloon floated over the treetops. Mrs. Morrison papered her kitchen walls with hideous wallpaper. The small boat foundered on the wine dark sea. The coal mines are dark and dank. Many stores have already begun to play irritating Christmas music. A battered music box sat on the mahogany sideboard. The back room was filled with large, yellow rain boots.

 An adjective can be modified by an adverb, or by a phrase or clause functioning as an adverb. In the sentence My husband knits intricately patterned mittens. The adverb "intricately" modifies the adjective "patterned.

 Some nouns, many pronouns, and many participle phrases can also act as adjectives. In the sentence
Eleanor listened to the muffled sounds of the radio hidden under her pillow.

Both highlighted adjectives are past participle. Grammarians also consider articles ("the," "a," "an") to be adjectives.

Positions of Adjective
Nearly always appear before the noun or noun phrase that they modify. Adjective Order. When indefinite pronouns such as something, someone, anybody are modified by an adjective, the adjective comes after the pronoun

Adjective Order
The categories can be described as follows: Determiners articles and other limiters. Description post determiners and limiter adjectives (e.g., a real hero, a perfect idiot) and adjectives subject to subjective measure (e.g., beautiful, interesting, delicious, gorgeous) Size adjectives subject to objective measure (e.g. big, little, enormous, large) Age adjectives denoting age (e.g., young, old, new, ancient) Shape adjectives denoting shape (e.g., square, triangular) Color adjectives denoting color (e.g., red, black, pale) Origin denominal adjectives denoting source of noun (e.g., French, American, Canadian) Material denominal adjectives denoting what something is made of (e.g., woolen, metallic, wooden) Qualifier final limiter, often regarded as part of the noun (e.g., rocking chair, hunting cabin, passenger car, book cover)

Degrees of Adjectives
Use the comparative for comparing two things and the superlative for comparing three or more things. The word than frequently accompanies the comparative and the word the precedes the superlative. The suffixes -er and -est suffice to form most comparatives and superlatives, although we need -ier and -iest when a twosyllable adjective ends in y (happier and happiest); otherwise we use more and most when an adjective has more than one syllable.

Positive Rich Lovely Beautiful Good Bad Far Little Some, many, much

Comparative Richer Lovelier More beautiful Better Worse Farther / further Less More

Superlative Richest Loveliest Most beautiful Best Worst Farthest/ Furthest Least Most