adjective

plural adjectives

1. grammarA word that modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes a noun’s referent.

   The words “big” and “heavy” are English adjectives.

   3 more examples

   "They'll have to invent new adjectives when I come back. You wait!"

   1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 8

   "We have fallen into the culture of adjectives and adverbs, and we have forgotten the strength of nouns," he said.

   2019 September 24, Jessie Yeung, quoting Pope Francis, “Pope Francis loves nouns but is ‘allergic’ to adjectives”, in CNN, archived from the original on 27 Sep 2019

   The Brazilian football legend, who passed away in December, has been added to the Portuguese edition of the Michaelis dictionary as an adjective to describe someone or something “out of the ordinary.”

   2023 April 27, George Ramsay, “Pelé added to Portuguese dictionary as an adjective for ‘out of the ordinary’”, in CNN, archived from the original on 19 Dec 2024

2. obsoleteA dependent; an accessory.

   it must be an adjective of dain

   1655, Thomas Fuller, The History of the University of Cambridge, since the Conquest, [London]: [[…] Iohn Williams […]], →OCLC

1. not comparablegrammarAdjectival; pertaining to or functioning as an adjective.

   Synonyms: adjectival

2. not comparablelawApplying to methods of enforcement and rules of procedure.

   The whole English law, substantive and adjective.

   1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter X, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC

   Synonyms: procedural · Antonyms: substantive

3. not comparablechemistryNeeding the use of a mordant to be made fast to that which is being dyed.

   Antonyms: substantive

4. not comparableobsoletereflected in the chemical sense; but extinct as a general sense; reflected in the chemical sense; but extinct as a general senseIncapable of independent function.

   In fact, God is of not so much importance in Himself, but as the end towards which man tends. That irreverent person who said that Browning uses “God” as a pigment made an accurate criticism of his theology. In Browning, God is adjective to man.

   1899, John Jay Chapman, Emerson and Other Essays, AMS Press (1969) (as reproduced in Project Gutenberg)

   Synonyms: dependent, derivative

present singular third person adjectives · participle present adjectiving · participle past adjectived · past adjectived

1. transitiveTo make an adjective of; to form or convert into an adjective.

   In English, instead of adjectiving our own substantives, we have borrowed, in immense numbers, adjectived signs from other languages[…]

   1832, William Hunter, An Anglo-Saxon grammar, and derivatives, page 46

   1 more example

   Language has as much occasion to adjective the distinct signification of the verb, and to adjective also the mood, as it has to adjective time. It has […] adjectived all three.

   1805, John Horne Tooke, Epea Pteroenta: or The Diversions of Purley Part 2

2. transitiveTo characterize with an adjective; to describe by using an adjective.

   For quotations using this term, see Citations:adjective.