How to Form Adjectives
Forming adjectives
1. Typical adjective endings (suffixes)
Some adjectives can be identified by their endings. Typical adjective endings include:
- -able/-ible understandable, comfortable, invisible, incredible
- -al/-ial mathematical, functional, influential, industrial
- -ful beautiful, wonderful, helpful, harmful
- -ic artistic, heroic, romantic, terrific
- -ive active, creative, inventive, attractive
- -less endless, hopeless, priceless, timeless
- -ous gorgeous, dangerous, famous, fabulous
Sometimes when adding these endings changes have to be made. Here are some rules for forming adjectives and their exceptions:
Add | Exceptions | Word | Adjective |
-al | If ending with an ‘e‘, drop it | Nature Function | Natural Functional |
-y | If ending with an ‘e‘, drop it | Ease Guilt | Easy Guilty |
-ful | If ending with a ‘y‘, replace with an ‘i‘ | Beauty Pain | Beautiful Painful |
-ous/-ious | If ending with a ‘y‘, drop it | Mystery Danger | Mysterious Dangerous |
-ic | If ending with a ‘y‘, drop it | History Rust | Historic Rustic |
2. Forming adjectives from nouns and verbs
Adjectives can be formed from different words. They can be formed from nouns:
Noun | Adjective |
accident | accidental |
child | childish |
hero | heroic |
wind | windy |
From verbs:
Verb | Adjective |
enjoy | enjoyable |
play | playful |
read | readable |
use | useful |
Or even from other adjectives:
Adjective | Adjective |
comic | comical |
correct | corrective |
green | greenish |
sick | sickly |
3. Typical adjective beginnings (prefixes)
Some adjectives can be formed by adding a prefixes such as un-, in-, im-, il- and ir- . Adding these prefixes makes the meaning negative:
- un- unfair, unhappy, unsure
- in- inactive, inappropriate, incomplete
- ir- irresponsible, irregular, irreducible
- im- imbalance, impolite, impossible
- il- illegal, illegible, illogical