Homework Help: Adjectives

An adjective is a noun's best friend. An adjective adds information to the noun. It is a word that describes (modifies) a noun or a pronoun. Adjectives can make our writing clearer and more descriptive. Different kinds of adjectives do different kinds of jobs in sentences. Adjectives tell you which one, what kind, or how many.

- Common and Proper Adjectives

Common adjectives tell which one, what kind, or how many.

The brown dog barked all night. Which dog? The brown dog! My two dogs love to swim. How many dogs? Two!

Proper adjectives are made from proper nouns and used to tell which one or what kind. Names of people, cities, and countries are proper nouns. Like proper nouns, proper adjectives should be capitalized.

I love Canadian bacon pizza. What kind of pizza? Canadian bacon! I like American cheese on my sandwich. What kind of cheese? American cheese. Emily's tennis shoes are new. Which shoes are new? Emily's shoes!

- Demonstrative adjectives

This, that, these and those are demonstrative adjectives. Demonstrative adjectives tell you if there is more that one noun and which one.

This cat is funny. This shows there is only one cat. These cats are funny. These means more than one cat. That cat is fat. Which cat? That one!

- Comparative adjective forms

Comparative adjectives are used to compare nouns.

The fish I caught is bigger than dad's but, mom caught the biggest fish. My cake is more delicious than yours. This is the most delicious cake I have ever tasted.

- Predicate adjectives

Predicate adjectives are used after a linking verb (is, are, feel, etc.) in a sentence. They describe the noun in front of the verb.

My sister is mad. Mad tells you about the sister. She is a mad sister! The frogs feel slimy. Slimy tells about the frogs. They are slimy frogs!