Can adjectives modify adverbs?Īdjectives can modify only nouns. For example, in the phrase “very funny movie,” funny is an adjective describing the noun movie, and very is an adverb describing the adjective funny. What is the difference between adjectives and adverbs?Īdjectives modify nouns, while adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. What are examples of adjectives?ĭescriptive words like beautiful, smooth, and heavy are all adjectives, as are numbers (“ twelve eggs”). Adjective FAQs What is an adjective?Īn adjective is a word that describes the traits, qualities, or number of a noun. But if it’s not pulling its weight, delete it. night? Always aim to make every word count in your writing. Is it a big house, or is it a mansion? A large crowd or a throng? A mixed-breed dog or a mutt? A dark night or just. But often, choosing the right noun eliminates the need to tack on an adjective.
It’s hard to describe a red sports car without the word red. Sometimes you need an adjective to convey exactly what you mean. It’s one thing to know how to use an adjective it’s another to know when using one is a good idea. We’ll end with a few words about adjectives and style. In these sentences, the nouns exam and qualities have been elided. Here’s an example you’ve probably heard before:Ĭamille tends to focus on intangibles like communication style and a sense of camaraderie when deciding whether to accept a job offer. This leads to a common type of mistake: using an adverb when what you want is a predicate adjective. But as we’ve seen, adjectives don’t need to be right next to nouns in order to modify them they can do so from after a linking verb in a sentence, as predicate adjectives. Many of us learned in school that adjectives modify nouns and that adverbs modify verbs. In the second sentence, you wouldn’t say “No one could open the silver old locket.” You can’t reverse the order of the adjectives because silver locket is a unit that is modified by old. Woolen sweater forms a unit of meaning that is modified by tattered.Īnother way to test for coordinate adjectives is to try switching the order of the adjectives and seeing if the phrase still works. It’s a woolen sweater inherently, and it has become tattered. In the first sentence above, “this tattered and woolen sweater” doesn’t sound right, because you really aren’t talking about a sweater that is both tattered and woolen in the same way.
Try inserting the word and between the adjectives to see if the phrase still seems natural. But there are a couple of ways you can test them. In some cases, it’s pretty hard to tell whether two adjectives are coordinate or not.
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