Notes - Forming Adjective

Some adjectives can be identified by their endings. Typical adjective endings include:

1.      -able/-ible forgettable, responsible, visible

2.    -al chemical, national, industrial
3.      -ful beautiful, colorful, faithful
4.      -ic artistic, classic, romantic, fantastic
5.    -ive attractive, imaginative, decorative
6.    -less hopeless, careless, useless
7.     -ous dangerous, jealous, anonymous, nervous 

Forming adjectives from ending

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	Brute Universe	Brutal Universal
-y	If ending with an ‘p‘, drop it	Sleep Slop	Sleepy Sloppy
-ful	If ending with a ‘y‘, replace with an ‘i‘	Beauty Duty	Beautiful Dutiful
-ous/-ious	If ending with a ‘e‘, drop it	Advantage Adventure	Advantageous Adventurous
-ic	If ending with a ‘t‘, drop it	Artist  Rust	Artistic Rustic

Forming adjectives from nouns and verbs

Adjectives can be formed from different words. They can be formed from nouns:

Noun	Adjective
Anger	Angry
Juice	Juicy
Luck	Lucky
Pain	Painful
Youth	Young

From Verb:

Verb	Adjective
Please	Pleasant
Attract	Attractive
Freeze	Frozen
Amuse	Amused
Urge	Urgent

Examples

1.      Our house color is a kind of yellow. → We live in a yellowish house.

2.      He often acts like a child. → He often acts in a childish way.

3.      The event was a big success. → We enjoyed a successful event.

4.      We enjoyed the sound of the drum’s rhythm. → We enjoyed the drum’s rhythmic sound.

5.      She adopted a dog without a home. → She adopted a homeless dog.

6.      Look out, that plant is poison. → Look out for that poisonous plant.

7.      It looks like it will rain today. → It looks like we’ll have rainy weather today.