Degree of Adjectives:
There are three degrees of adjectives, also known as degrees of comparison, namely, positive, comparative, and superlative.
- Positive Degree: When you talk about or describe only a single person, place, or thing, you should use the positive degree.
Examples:
- Sudha is an elegant lady.
- The indoor game was interesting.
- Comparative Degree: When two persons, places, or things are compared, the comparative degree of the word is used. Normally, “-er” is added at the end of the word to transform the word into its comparative form. Some words do not take “-er” as a suffix. So, the word “more” is put before them. Also, the word “than” should be added after the adjective in the comparative degree.
Examples:
- Priya is more intelligent than Meera.
- Medha runs faster than Divya.
- Superlative Degree: When two or more things are compared, the superlative form of the adjectives should be used and the word “the” should be added before the adjective. In order to transform the adjective into its superlative form, the suffix “-est” or the word “most” should be added before the word.
Example:
- I think this is the best movie that I ever watched in my life.
- This is the most expensive bicycle available.
Order of Adjectives as Part of Speech:
We often use multiple adjectives to describe/ modify the same noun or pronoun. Each of these adjectives works independently to modify the same word. To avoid inappropriate sounding sentences when we use more than one adjective, they are required to be put in a specific order according to the type of description they provide.
This is known as the order of adjectives which are stated below:
- Determiner - An article (a, an, the), a number or amount, a possessive adjective (my, his, her, its, your, our, their), or a demonstrative (this, that, these, those).
- Opinion - good, bad, strange, lovely
- Size - big, small, tiny, huge
- Shape - curved, straight, round, square
- Quality - wet, dry, clean, sad, happy
- Age - old, young, new, ancient
- Color - red, yellowish, transparent, blue
- Pattern - checked, striped, plaid, flowered
- Origin - American, British, eastern, western
- Material - wooden, plastic, steel, cloth
- Type - human, chemical, domestic, electronic, money (problems), etc.
- Purpose - sleeping, shopping, work, gardening
Examples:
- A new cloth bag. (Article + age + material)
- A Canadian IT company. (Article + origin + type)
- Three small square brown plates. (Number + size + shape + colour)