Adjectives

An adjective is a word that describes a noun.

The adjectives below are underlined.

The fast car, the open box, the big loud angry red-faced teacher, the terrified, cowering, weeping student, the stuffy classroom, the difficult relationship, the pretty little face.

English adjectives do not change according to the number or case of the noun.


An adjective may, of course, come after a noun and verb  (in the "predicative" position).

The pot is hot, the sky is blue, the floor is wet, the boy got soaked on his way to school,the day is growing warm.


I have little more to add, except to say that the words a, the, this, that, these, those, another, either, neither, each, every, any, some, few, a few, one, two, three, enough, sufficient and several others are not adjectives but determinatives. Determinatives include the definite and indefinite articles (the and a)

I point this out because the determinatives  look pretty much like adjectives:  they sit in front of the noun and tell you something about it.

Two men, this door, that car, these papers, some people, enough money, a few mistakes, neither book, every student.

But they are not counted as adjectives. An adjective describes;  a determinative determines: it singles out, indicates, identifies or counts.

Another difference is that you can stack up adjectives  and run a whole load of them in front of a noun. The big, bad, hairy, vicious, yellow-eyed, drooling, hungry wolf.

You cannot do this with determinatives. Two is about the limit. The two men, these several years, sufficient money, some people.


Fun fact*

There is a small group of adjectives starting with "a" that can go only in the predicative position (after the verb and  noun): afraid, ablaze, aghast, alike, ashamed, agog, alone, alive, aware, awake (e.g.. we cannot not say the afraid boy, but we can say the boy is afraid).

*I accept that my idea of fun may differ from yours