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Describing language
Describing language

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2.1 What can adjectives tell us?

A chalk board with a range of adjectives written in decorative script. The words include: lovely, fresh, soft, hot, fragrant, cool, amazing, healthy, and tasty.
Figure 2 A chalk board in a café.

This week you’ll focus on the larger categories of adjectives. These include adjectives that describe:

  • Size: big, small, huge, minute, ginormous, tiny, humungous, microscopic, etc.
  • Colour: from the basics like red, yellow, blue… all the way to ones which mainly feature in clothing catalogues, like taupe, cerise, teal, gamboge, etc.
  • Shape: round, square, spherical, ovoid, bulky, lumpy, formless, curved, straight, bent, deep, wide, broad, long, etc.
  • Appearance: tall, broad, skinny, plump, impressive, menacing, distinguished, hairy, shiny, wavy, spiky, etc.
  • Character: honest, shifty, friendly, handy, boring, amusing, cynical, imaginative, creepy, picturesque, useless, unbearable, etc.

You could add more categories, and within each the list could go on and on… as far as your vocabulary stretches!