List of Descriptive Adjectives: Simple, Compound, and Proper

Developing a full list of descriptive adjectives for the English language would be a formidable task. English is a language that welcomes modifiers with open arms.

While there are a finite amount of words from which to choose, writers and speakers of English are presented with what seems like an infinite amount of descriptive possibilities.

When you begin to factor in how descriptive adjectives can be combined, it becomes apparent that writers and speakers of English are limited only by their imagination when it comes to building a list of descriptive adjectives: simple, compound, and proper.

What are Adjectives?

Adjectives are words that describe nouns. Specifically, adjectives describe the action, state, or quality that nouns refer to.

Descriptive adjectives are the largest class of the three most prominent types of adjectives. The other two main types being quantitative and demonstrative adjectives.

To help get your own list up and running take a closer look at these examples of descriptive adjectives.

An Organized List of Descriptive Adjectives

A list of descriptive adjectives can be organized into three categories to help writers and speakers better manage this large class of words.

Simple Adjectives

Simple adjectives, as their name suggests, are the most basic kind of descriptive adjectives. They function to express quality.

Aspects such as feelings, time, sound, quantity, taste, appearance, size, age, color, shape, and material are expressed through simple adjectives. The following table highlights some common examples:

aggressive	alert	alive	ancient
anxious	arrow	attractive	average
bad	beautiful	beige	better
big	bitter	black	blue
brown	bumpy	busy	careful
cheap	chestnut	clear	cold
combative	cool	cotton	crazy
crooked	crystal	dangerous	dead
delicious	dim	drab	dry
dull	dusty	elderly	excited
expensive	fancy	fat	few
filthy	fresh	fuzzy	giant
good	graceful	granite	green
handsome	happy	hard	harsh
hollow	hot	huge	hungry
large	lazy	light	long
low	massive	mellow	melodic
miniscule	modern	new	noisy
oak	octagonal	old	orange
oval	petite	pink	plain
plastic	poor	puny	purple
quiet	rainy	red	rich
right	round	sad	safe
salty	sane	scared	shallow
sharp	shiny	short	shrill
shy	skinny	small	soft
solid	sore	sour	square
steep	sticky	strong	superior
sweet	swift	tan	tart
teak	teeny	terrible	tiny
tired	tremendous	triangular	ugly
unusual	weak	weary	wet
whispering	white	wild	wooden
woolen	wrong	yellow	young

Compound Adjectives

Compound adjectives are created when two words are combined to create a descriptive adjective.

The two words are typically connected with a hyphen. The following table provides some common examples of compound adjectives:

baby-faced	bow-legged	broken-hearted	bull-headed
candy-stripped	four-sided	freckle-faced	hard-hearted
hard-nosed	heavy-handed	high-heeled	ice-cold
left-handed	life-giving	long-legged	long-winded
next-door	pigeon-toed	red-blooded	self-centered
short-tempered	sure-footed	thin-skinned	tight-fisted

Proper Adjectives

The following table lists a number of descriptive adjectives that are derived from proper nouns.

Nations, regions, and religions are common qualities described by proper adjectives. Because they are derived from proper nouns, proper adjectives are always capitalized. For example:

American	Antarctic	Atlantic	Buddhist
Californian	Canadian	Chinese	Christian
Cuban	Ecuadorian	English	French
German	Greek	Hindu	Indonesian
Italian	Mayan	Mexican	Pacific
Peruvian	Roman	Romanian	Satanic
Spanish	Turkish	Victorian	Welsh

Putting Adjectives in Order

When using multiple descriptive adjectives in a sentence, there is an order in which they should be arranged. Adjectives that describe opinion typically precede adjectives that describe color, size, shape, etc. For example, the sentence "The ugly, red chair sat in the corner," is preferable to "The red, ugly chair sat in the corner."

In addition, adjectives are usually arranged in a sentence from those that are more general in scope to those that are more specific. For example, "The big, Egyptian mask hung on the wall," is preferable to "The Egyptian, big mask hung on the wall," and "The blue, silken curtains are perfect in the bedroom," is preferable to "The silken, blue curtains are perfect in the bedroom."

Using Adjectives

Writers and speakers can refer to a list of descriptive adjectives for ideas on how to better explain the action, state, or quality that a noun in a sentence refers to. Understanding that there are three main types of descriptive adjectives can provide further insight on how these important words can be used.

With a good descriptive adjective resource and a little creativity, you can begin to add more personality to your writing. Speaking of which, enjoy this article: Examples of Personality Adjectives. It might help bring your characters to life!