What are adjectives?

What is an adjective?

An adjective is a word that describes a noun.

They went to an exciting football match.

The adjective 'exciting' tells you more about the noun 'football match'.

Adjectives can go before or after the noun.

The football match was exciting.

Using more than one adjective can add detail and make your writing more interesting and specific for the reader.

Fans filled the enormous, buzzing stadium.

Follow along with this story about a football match to see how adjectives are used to describe what happens.

Adjectives are a type of word you can add to your sentences to make your writing more descriptive and detailed.

Adjectives give more information about nouns.

The pitch was muddy after the match.

A noun is a person, place or thing. The adjective 'muddy' describes the noun 'pitch'.

Adjectives help make sentences more specific.

The huge, echoing stadium shook as the crowd cheered.

Without the adjectives, it sounds more plain.

The stadium shook as the crowd cheered.

Adding 'huge' and 'echoing' tells the reader what kind of stadium it is, making the image clearer and more vivid.

When using more than one adjective in a sentence, it is most effective when the adjectives describe different things.

The team scored after a long, accurate cross from the wing.

Look at this picture from the team’s football match. Can you think of five different adjectives to describe the action?

Writers sometimes join two words with a hyphen to make one powerful adjective.

Look at these sentences below about the football match. Which adjectives are hyphenated and what do they tell us?

Next time you help with the food shop at the supermarket, why not make the shopping list more interesting?

Add different adjectives to the items on the list.