Descriptive Adjectives
Learn Descriptive Adjectives in English and start describing people, places, and things clearly with simple words and sentence patterns.
Descriptive adjectives give more information about a person, place, or thing. They tell us about size, color, shape, age, appearance, or personality. We use them to make simple sentences clearer.
Some descriptive adjectives tell us about size. These words show if something is big, small, long, short, tall, or wide.
| Word or Phrase | Definition |
|---|---|
| big | It describes something large 📦. |
| small | It describes something little 🔹. |
| long | It describes something with much length 📏. |
| short | It describes something with little length 📐. |
| tall | It describes a person or thing with great height 🏢. |
| wide | It describes something with much width ↔️. |
Some descriptive adjectives tell us about color. We use these words to say what color a person, place, or thing is.
| Word or Phrase | Definition |
|---|---|
| red | It describes something with the color red 🔴. |
| blue | It describes something with the color blue 🔵. |
| green | It describes something with the color green 🟢. |
| black | It describes something with the color black ⚫. |
| white | It describes something with the color white ⚪. |
| yellow | It describes something with the color yellow 🟡. |
Some descriptive adjectives tell us about shape. These words describe the form of a thing.
| Word or Phrase | Definition |
|---|---|
| round | It describes something with a circular shape ⚪. |
| square | It describes something with four equal sides ⬜. |
| flat | It describes something with a level surface 📄. |
| thin | It describes something with little distance across 📏. |
Some descriptive adjectives tell us about age. These words show if a person, place, or thing is new, old, young, or ancient.
| Word or Phrase | Definition |
|---|---|
| new | It describes something that is not old ✨. |
| old | It describes something with many years ⏳. |
| young | It describes a person or animal with few years 👦. |
| ancient | It describes something from a very long time ago 🏺. |
We also use descriptive adjectives for appearance and personality. Appearance adjectives describe how a person looks. Personality adjectives describe how a person is.
| Word or Phrase | Definition |
|---|---|
| beautiful | It describes a person or thing that looks very nice 🌸. |
| strong | It describes a person or thing with much power 💪. |
| friendly | It describes a person who is kind to other people 😊. |
| quiet | It describes a person who does not speak much 🤫. |
| happy | It describes a person who feels good 😄. |
| sad | It describes a person who feels unhappy 😢. |
We usually put a descriptive adjective before a noun. The adjective and the noun make a basic noun phrase. One adjective can describe one noun, and more than one adjective can come before the noun.
| Rule |
|---|
| Put the descriptive adjective before the noun 📝. |
| Use the adjective next to the noun it describes 🔎. |
| You can use more than one descriptive adjective before one noun 📚. |
We can use descriptive adjectives after be to describe the subject. In this pattern, be links the subject and the adjective. The adjective gives information about the subject.
| Subject | Form |
|---|---|
| I |  am |
| you | are |
| he | is |
| she | is |
| it | is |
| we | are |
| they | are |
We can combine multiple descriptive adjectives in one noun phrase. These adjectives all come before the noun. The noun stays at the end of the phrase.
| Rule |
|---|
| Place each descriptive adjective before the noun 🎯. |
| Keep the noun after all descriptive adjectives 📘. |
| Use multiple descriptive adjectives to give more detail 🖼️. |
You can now use descriptive adjectives to describe people, places, and things in simple English sentences. You can use adjectives for size, color, shape, age, appearance, and personality. You can place adjectives before nouns, use adjectives with be, and combine more than one adjective in one noun phrase.