An indefinite article is a limiting adjective that precedes an unspecified thing, person, or idea. In English, the only indefinite articles are a and an. The article always comes first in its noun phrase, sometimes preceding other adjectives in the phrase (for example, a precedes the adjective black ... Read more
Coordinate adjectives
Coordinate adjectives are adjectives that appear in sequence with one another to modify the same noun. For example, the adjectives in the phrases bright, sunny day and dark and stormy night are coordinate adjectives. Coordinate adjectives are usually separated with either commas or and, and and ... Read more
Postpositive adjectives
Postpositive adjectives are adjectives that follow the nouns they modify. Such constructions evince the influence that Romance languages, especially French, have had and still have on English. French, Spanish, and Italian all use postpositive adjectives as a rule. In general, postpositive ... Read more
Phrasal adjectives
A phrasal adjective (also known as an adjective phrase or compound adjective) is a phrase that modifies a noun. Phrasal adjective hyphenation When a phrasal adjective precedes a noun, it usually takes a hyphen or, for phrases of three or more words, hyphens. This makes things easier for your ... Read more
Participles
Participles are versatile adjectives (sometimes adverbs) formed by adding -ing or -ed to the stem of an infinitive verb. Participles like laughing, breathing, and stunning are present participles, and words like baked, blanketed, and cracked are past participles. While there are no irregular ... Read more
Definite articles
In English, the only definite article is the. It precedes singular and plural nouns and noun phrases. It's used in three main contexts. 1. The precedes a noun or noun phrase that needs no further qualification---for example: The weather was horrible. The Senate is a mob of 100 wholly owned ... Read more
Uncomparable adjectives
Uncomparable adjectives describe absolute states or conditions. Modifiers like more and less do not apply to them, and they don't have comparative and superlative forms. Here are some of the most common uncomparable ... Read more
Animal adjectives
adjective accipitrine animal hawk anserine goose aquiline eagle asinine ass avine bird bovine cow bubaline buffalo cameline camel cancrine crab canine dog caprine goat corvine deer corvine crow, ... Read more
Nouns as adjectives
Nouns sometimes function as adjectives. For example, in each of these phrases, the first word is usually a noun but here functions as an adjective modifying the second word: city government, article writer, bicycle thief, Sunday picnic, pumpkin pie. Adjective--noun confusion When this type of ... Read more
