Adjective Formation in English Grammar

Making adjectives with suffixes

Many adjectives are formed by adding suffixes (endings) to nouns and verbs.

Many suffixes only fulfil a grammatical role and simply indicate that the word is now an adjective, but there are some suffixes that carry their own meaning:

• The suffix -less means without something, whereas the suffix -ful usually means to have something.

Example:

hopeful ≠ hopeless

• However, only few adjectives can be made into opposite pairs like this.

Examples:

homeless

but not: homeful

beautiful

but not: beautiless

• We can add the suffix -ish to nouns and adjectives to change their meaning to like something.

Examples:

Don’t be childish.

= like a child

The jacket is a bluish colour.

= like blue

• For some materials, we can add the suffix -en to create adjectives that mean made of.

Examples:

A wooden chair.

A woollen jumper.

• When added to a verb, the suffix -able creates adjectives that express ability.

Examples:

Is the water drinkable?

= can you drink it?

Spelling rules

Usually, we just add the suffix to the end of the verb or noun.

Examples:

drink → drinkable

success → successful

However, sometimes we must add, remove or change letters before adding a suffix.

• We double the final consonant after a short stressed vowel.

Example:

sun → sunny

• A -y at the end of a word becomes -i.

Example:

beauty → beautiful

• We remove the final -e if the suffix begins with a vowel, but -ee, -oe and -ye stay the same.

Example:

fortune → fortunate

but: agree → agreeable

Table: Adjectives from nouns

The table below shows a list of common suffixes we can add to nouns to form adjectives:

Table: Adjectives from verbs

The table below shows some of the most common suffixes we can add to verbs to form adjectives:

*-ed or -ing?

Some adjectives formed from verbs can have two possible endings: -ed or -ing.

Examples:

confuse – confused/confusing

bore – bored/boring

The difference between -ed and -ing adjectives is as follows:

• -ed adjectives describe a person’s feelings.

Example:

Erica is bored at work.

= she feels bored

• -ing adjectives describe the effect of a noun. Adjectives ending in -ing describe the thing or person that causes a feeling.
  

  Example:

  Erica’s job is boring.

  = the job bores Erica

Country Adjectives

Adjectives that describe nationality are always written with capital letters.

• We usually form country adjectives by adding -n to the end of the word.
  

  Example:

  America → American

  Russia → Russian

  Australia → Australian

• But we can also use -ese, -i, -ian and -ish to build country adjectives.
  

  Example:

  Japan → Japanese

  Iraq → Iraqi

  Ukraine → Ukrainian

The table below provides an overview of country adjectives.

• Some countries have irregular forms.
  

  Example:

  Germany → German

  France → French

  Greece → Greek

  Switzerland → Swiss

  Ireland → Irish

For a detailed list of countries, languages and adjectives see: List of Countries and Nationalities

Adjectives with prefixes

Most adjectives in English have an opposite. Often, these word pairs are completely different to one another:

Examples:

big ≠ small

hot ≠ cold

tall ≠ short

However, we can also use prefixes to form opposite adjectives.

il-, im- and ir-

The prefixes il-, im- and ir- are only used before particular letters:

• il- comes before words that start with an -l

Example:

legal → illegal

• im- comes before words that start with an -m or a -p

Example:

patient → impatient

• ir- comes before words that start with an -r

Example:

responsible → irresponsible

The table below shows the most common adjectives that form their opposites with the prefixes il-, im- and ir-:

dis-, in- and un-

The most common prefixes for forming opposite adjectives are un-, dis-, and in-.

Unlike the prefixes above, there are no fixed rules as to which letters can follow the prefixes un-, dis- and in-. The table below shows some typical examples: