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Linguistics & Grammar vocabulary · Parts of Speech

Adjective

Meaning in linguistics & grammar, with examples

/ˈædʒɪktɪv/nounCore term

In linguistics & grammar, adjective means: A word that describes a noun or pronoun or gives more information about it, such as tall, interesting or Turkish.

In Turkish: sıfat, ön ad

How it is used

Adjectives can come before a noun (an old house) or after linking verbs like be, seem and become (the house is old). Teachers cover comparative and superlative forms and the usual order of several adjectives.

Example sentences

  1. English adjectives do not take a plural ending: we say 'two big cars', not 'two bigs cars'.

  2. Nationality adjectives such as Turkish and Spanish always start with a capital letter.

Common collocations

  • comparative adjective
  • superlative adjective
  • possessive adjective
  • order of adjectives
  • adverbA word that adds information to a verb, an adjective, another adverb or a whole sentence, such as how, when, where or how often something happens.
  • nounA word that names a person, place, thing, idea or feeling and can usually be the subject or object of a verb, such as teacher, Ankara, chair or freedom.
  • part of speechOne of the classes into which words are grouped by their grammatical behaviour, such as noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition and conjunction.
  • determinerA word that comes before a noun to show which one or how much is meant, such as the, a, this, my, some, every or two.

More terms: Parts of Speech

Practise with graded reading

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