What are adjectives?

What are Adjectives?

Adjectives are used primarily to describe nouns or pronouns. They provide more information about the person, thing, place, or animal being discussed in the sentence.

Adjectives also give more detail about the person, thing, animal, or place that receives the action of the subject.

Any word that describes something is called an adjective, such as those that express colors, numbers, characteristics, sizes, height, etc.

Example:

"The junior student works at the senior campus."

In this sentence, “student” and “campus” are nouns. “Student” is the subject, “campus” is the direct object, and “works” is the verb.

The words “junior” and “senior” appear before the nouns “student” and “campus” respectively.

“Junior” is an adjective describing the student, and “senior” is an adjective describing the campus.

If these adjectives are removed, the sentence becomes:

"The student works at the campus."

Both sentences are grammatically correct, but the first sentence is more informative because it gives more detail about the nouns.

Without the adjectives, we would not know whether the student is a junior or senior, nor what type of campus is involved. The adjectives “junior” and “senior” provide this important information.

Using adjectives is not always mandatory; it depends on the context and the idea one wishes to express.