adjective
/ˈæd͡ʒ.ɪk.tɪv/
adjective noun: a word that modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes a noun’s referent.
Noun
adjective (plural adjectives)
- A word that modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes a noun’s referent.
- The words “big” and “heavy” are English adjectives.
- "They'll have to invent new adjectives when I come back. You wait!"1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 8
- A dependent; an accessory.
- it must be an adjective of dain1655, Thomas Fuller, The History of the University of Cambridge, since the Conquest, [London]: [[…] Iohn Williams […]], →OCLC
Adjective
adjective (not comparable)
- Adjectival; pertaining to or functioning as an adjective.
- Synonyms:
- adjectival
- Applying to methods of enforcement and rules of procedure.
- The whole English law, substantive and adjective.1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter X, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans...
- Synonyms:
- procedural
- Antonyms:
- substantive
- Needing the use of a mordant to be made fast to that which is being dyed.
- Antonyms:
- substantive
- Incapable of independent function.
- In fact, God is of not so much importance in Himself, but as the end towards which man tends. That irreverent person who said that Browning uses “God” as a pigment made an accurate criticism of his theology. In Browning, God is adjective to man.1899, John Jay Chapman, Emerson and Other Essays, AMS Press (1969) (as reproduced in Project Gutenberg)
- Synonyms:
- dependent, derivative
Verb
adjective (third-person singular simple present adjectives, present participle adjectiving, simple past and past participle adjectived)
- To make an adjective of; to form or convert into an adjective.
- Language has as much occasion to adjective the distinct signification of the verb, and to adjective also the mood, as it has to adjective time. It has […] adjectived all three.1805, John Horne Tooke, Epea Pteroenta: or The Diversions of Purley Part 2
- In English, instead of adjectiving our own substantives, we have borrowed, in immense numbers, adjectived signs from other languages[…]1832, William Hunter, An Anglo-Saxon grammar, and derivatives, page 46
- To characterize with an adjective; to describe by using an adjective.
- For quotations using this term, see Citations:adjective.
adjective meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
adjective in Hindi
- (grammar) a word that modifies a noun or describes a noun’s referent
- बिशेषण biśeṣaṇ, विशेषण viśeṣaṇ
adjective in Tamil
- (grammar) a word that modifies a noun or describes a noun’s referent
- உரிச்சொல் uriccol, பெயரடை peyaraṭai, பெயர் உரிச்சொல் peyar uriccol
adjective in Marathi
- (grammar) a word that modifies a noun or describes a noun’s referent
- विशेषण viśeṣaṇa
adjective in Urdu
- (grammar) a word that modifies a noun or describes a noun’s referent
- صِفَت sifat, بِشیشَن biśeśan
More languagesFewer languages
- adjective in Bengali
- বিশেষণ biśeśon
- adjective in Telugu
- విశేషణము viśēṣaṇamu
- adjective in Malayalam
- നാമവിശേഷണം nāmaviśēṣaṇaṁ
- adjective in Kannada
- ವಿಶೇಷಣ viśēṣaṇa
- adjective in Punjabi
- ਉੱਤਰ uttar, ਵਿਸ਼ੇਸ਼ਣ viśeśaṇ
- adjective in Gujarati
- વિશેષણ viśeṣaṇ
- adjective in Odia
- ବିଶେଷଣ biśeṣaṇa
- adjective in Sanskrit
- विशेषण viśeṣaṇa
- adjective in Nepali
- विशेषण viśeṣaṇ
- adjective in Pashto
- صفت sefat
- adjective in Tagalog
- pang-uri
- adjective in Arabic
- نَعْت naʕt, صِفَة ṣifa, وَصْف waṣf, إِجْرَائِيّ ʔijrāʔiyy
- adjective in Malay
- kata sifat, kata keadaan, adjektif
- adjective in Indonesian
- kata sifat, adjektiva, kata keadaan
- adjective in Thai
- คุณศัพท์ kun-ná-sàp, วิเศษณ์ wí-sèet, นามวิเศษณ์
- adjective in Vietnamese
- tính từ, hình dung từ
- adjective in Myanmar
- နာမဝိသေသန nama.wi.sesa.na.
- Kashmiri
- باوُت bāvut
Examples of adjective in a sentence
- "We have fallen into the culture of adjectives and adverbs, and we have forgotten the strength of nouns," he said.2019 September 24, Jessie Yeung, quoting Pope Francis, “Pope Francis loves nouns but is ‘allergic’ to adjectives”, in CNN, archived from...
- The Brazilian football legend, who passed away in December, has been added to the Portuguese edition of the Michaelis dictionary as an adjective to describe someone or something “out of the ordinary.”2023 April 27, George Ramsay, “Pelé added to Portuguese dictionary as an adjective for ‘out of the ordinary’”, in CNN, archived from the...
Synonyms of adjective
- adjectival
- procedural
- dependent
- derivative
- adjective noun
- adnoun
- describing word
- description word
- noun adjective
- adjectify
1 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of adjective
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | adjectives |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | adjectives |
| present participle | adjectiving |
| past participle | adjectived |
| past | adjectived |
Origin of adjective
From Middle English adjectif, adjective, from Old French adjectif, from Latin adiectivus, from adiciō + -īvus, from ad- (“to, towards, at”) + iaciō (“throw”). The Latin word adiectivus in turn was a calque of Ancient Greek ἐπιθετικόν (epithetikón, “added”), a derivative of the compound verb ἐπιτίθημι (epitíthēmi), from which also comes epithet.
Words formed from adjective
- adjectival
- adjective clause
- adjective dye
- adjectivehood
- adjective law
- adjectiveless
- adjectively
- adjective patterns
- adjective phrase
- adjective pronoun
- adjective verb
- adjectivism
- adjectivitis
- adjectivity
- adjectivization
- common adjective
- deadjectival
- nonadjective
- overadjectived
- phrasal adjective
- predicate adjective
- proadjective
- proper adjective
- unadjectived
- verbal adjective
- い-adjective
- な-adjective
Phrases with adjective
- -i adjective
- -na adjective
- adjective laws
- noun adjective
- adjective verbs
- adjective clauses
- adjective phrases
- ordinal adjective
- adjective pronouns
- cardinal adjective
- limiting adjective
- relative adjective
16 more phrasesFewer phrases
- numerical adjective
- privative adjective
- indefinite adjective
- possessive adjective
- relational adjective
- attributive adjective
- descriptive adjective
- nominalized adjective
- participial adjective
- predicative adjective
- prepositive adjective
- substantive adjective
- possessional adjective
- postpositive adjective
- demonstrative adjective
- interrogative adjective
Questions about adjective
- What does adjective mean?
- Adjective means a word that modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes a noun’s referent.
- What is adjective in Hindi?
- Adjective in Hindi is बिशेषण (biśeṣaṇ), विशेषण (viśeṣaṇ). See Adjective meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use adjective in a sentence?
- "We have fallen into the culture of adjectives and adverbs, and we have forgotten the strength of nouns," he said.
- What part of speech is adjective?
- Adjective can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce adjective?
- Adjective is pronounced /ˈæd͡ʒ.ɪk.tɪv/.
- What is the plural of adjective?
- The plural of adjective is adjectives.
Words near adjective in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: adjective (page history and authors); ਉੱਤਰ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); વિશેષણ (Gujarati) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-adjective.ogg.
Cite this entry: “adjective.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/adjective. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.