Types of Adjectives

Read the story “The Princess and the Frog” and study the highlighted adjectives carefully. 

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who had a golden ball. She lived in a magnificent palace with her father, the great wise king, and her seven sisters. Every day she played with her ball in the huge garden of the palace. 

At the end of the garden there was a deep, dark pond. When the weather was hot, the princess liked playing near the pond. Unfortunately, one day she dropped her golden ball into the water. She was very unhappy and she sat on the grass and started to cry.  Suddenly, she heard a loud voice: “Don’t cry, princess.” She opened her eyes and saw a large green frog. “Oh, please help me! 

She said, “I can’t get my ball.” 

“I’ll help you,” said the frog, “if I can come and live with you in the palace!” 

“Yes, yes, of course. I promise,” said the princess. 

So, the frog jumped into the water and came back with the ball. The princess laughed and took the ball. She ran quickly back to the palace and forgot all about the frog. 

The frog was very angry. He followed the princess into the palace and told his story to the King. 

“A promise is a promise,” said the frog. 

“Yes,” said the King and called his daughter. “A promise is a promise, my daughter. Take this frog to your room and look after him carefully.” 

The princess cried again, but she took the frog and put him on her bed. The frog looked at her and said quietly, “Please kiss me, princess.” She closed her eyes and kissed him. Immediately, the frog turned into a handsome prince. Of course, he and the princess fell in love. One week later they married and lived happily ever after. 

Now let’s discuss:

In the above story the word “beautiful” is used to describe the princess and “magnificent” for her palace. 

Therefore, beautiful and magnificent are adjectives. 

Def.: An Adjective is a word used to describe a noun. 

In the above story the following words are the adjectives.  

• Beautiful 
• Magnificent 
• Great  
• Wise   
• Seven 
• Huge 
• Deep 
• Dark  
• Hot 
• Unhappy  

Let us classify them under different kinds of adjective. 

The words in the above story beautiful, magnificent, great, wise, huge, deep, dark, hot, unhappy are adjectives are qualities so they are called adjectives of quality used to describe persons or things. 

Whereas the word seven in the above story represents the number so it is called adjectives of quantity. 

There are 7 types of adjectives namely: 

1. Adjective of Quality
2. Adjective of Quantity
3. Demonstrative Adjective
4. Distributive Adjective
5. Interrogative Adjective
6. Possessive Adjective
7. Emphasizing Adjective 

Adjectives of Quality

Adjectives of Quality are words that tell us about the kind or qualities of a person or thing being talked about. Such adjectives include:

• white
• nice
• large
• beautiful
• excellent
• kind
• tall, etc. 

Adjective of quantity

Adjective of quantity indicates the amount or estimated amount of the noun or pronoun in the sentence.

Examples:

• some
• little
• enough
• no
• much
• seven
• five
• hundred. etc. 

Demonstrative adjective

A demonstrative adjective is an adjective used to specifically describe the position of something or someone in space or time. The most commonly used demonstrative adjectives are:

• this
• that
• these
• those

Distributive adjective

A distributive adjective is an adjective that refers to members of a group individually. For example, the word each is a distributive adjective in the sentence. Each person got their own lunch. Such adjectives include:

• each
• every
• either
• neither
• any

Interrogative adjective

An interrogative adjective is an adjective that modifies a noun or pronoun in order to ask a question. What, which, and whose are interrogative adjectives.

Example:

• Which color is your favorite? 

Possessive adjective

A possessive adjective is an adjective that modifies a noun by identifying who has ownership or possession of it.

Example:

• My
• your
• his
• her
• its
• our
• their 

Emphasizing adjectives

Emphasizing adjectives are words that are used to emphasize nouns. Such adjectives include:

• absolute
• complete
• actual
• outright
• pure
• real
• total
• true
• utter  

Example:

• “Is that your actual name?” 

Exercise 1:

Match the adjectives with their types in the table given below: 

Exercise 2:

Identify the adjectives in the following paragraphs and classify them under types of adjectives in the table given below. 

Joseph went to his friend, Michael’s birthday party on Saturday. Michael turned fifteen years old. There were about thirty-five friends. He gave him a present wrapped in green paper. All loudly sang “Happy Birthday” to him. Then, we ate delicious birthday cake. Which cake was ordered? 

It was brown chocolate cake. There was a funny clown at the birthday party. Then they were a singing competition. The clown gave each participant a surprise gift and all friends pretty balloons. We played lots of fun games too at the party. There was total entertainment. He had a wonderful time at the birthday party.