List of descriptive word
List of Descriptive Words: Adjectives, Adverbs, & Participles
Which is more intriguing — a dark, spooky night or a pitch-black, starless, ominous night? Would you rather eat a delicious cake or a mouthwatering, sugar-sweet chocolate cake? Using descriptive words makes readers feel like they’re in your scene instead of just reading it. When you’ve got the proper list of descriptive words, you can easily turn handsome into chiseled or pretty into dazzling.
lists of descriptive adjectives, adverbs, and participles
Advertisement
Adjectives as Descriptive Words
Adjectives are descriptive words that modify nouns. They’re what you need to tell the difference between an acrobatic cat, a delirious cat, and a precious cat (or maybe a cat that’s all three).
acrobatic | adorable | adventurous |
bitter | boundless | bright |
brilliant | brittle | delirious |
diminutive | exultant | filthy |
foolhardy | gregarious | intrepid |
jocular | joyful | jubilant |
keen | kooky | lanky |
lazy | limp | lush |
luxurious | macabre | magnanimous |
mellow | miserable | nimble |
nocturnal | opulent | ornate |
ordinary | palatial | parsimonious |
peevish | picturesque | potent |
practical | precious | putrid |
questionable | quirky | radiant |
raspy | rustic | scornful |
scrumptious | silky | sly |
spider-like | spectacular | tentacular |
tense | thorny | verdant |
whimsical | woeful | zesty |
Adverbs as Descriptive Words
Use an adverb to describe an action rather than a noun, or if you want to add even more detail to an adjective. Most adverbs end in -ly (though not all of them), and they’re helpful ways to strengthen your writing.
amusingly | angrily | apathetically |
assertively | begrudgingly | blissfully |
blithely | boldly | boisterously |
chillingly | coyly | darkly |
dazzlingly | deafeningly | dutifully |
eagerly | facetiously | faintly |
falteringly | frivolously | greedily |
grimly | gloweringly | guiltily |
hastily | hungrily | intelligently |
kindly | lavishly | lazily |
listlessly | masterfully | meagerly |
methodically | naively | narrowly |
neglectfully | nerve-wrackingly | numbly |
offensively | passionately | pleasantly |
pointlessly | quickly | rapidly |
rashly | secretly | seriously |
swiftly | tactfully | teasingly |
tenderly | timorously | tragically |
underhandedly | vacantly | vividly |
weirdly | youthfully | zealously |
Participles as Descriptive Words
You can even use verbs as describing words — although they’re called participles in that context. Past participles end in -ed or -en, present participles end in -ing, and they all look like descriptive words that you probably use all the time.
acclaimed | accomplished | amazing |
amused | baby-faced | battered |
beaten | bleeding | boring |
broken | blushing | bow-legged |
captivating | cluttered | confusing |
chosen | complicated | condemned |
crystallized | customized | dazzling |
depressed | disgusting | distressing |
disturbing | dreaming | driven |
dyed | embarrassing | exciting |
far-reaching | fascinated | freckled |
frustrating | hard-hearted | humiliating |
interesting | irritating | lying |
melted | mouthwatering | peaked |
puzzling | relaxing | riveting |
satisfied | scared | scented |
shocking | sickening | side-splitting |
staggering | sweeping | tattered |
threatening | thrilled | tired |
towering | weathered | wrinkled |
Advertisement
Using Descriptive Words in Your Writing
Descriptive words help paint a picture in the reader's mind. The sentence "It was windy," might give the reader information, but it's not very descriptive. Consider how much imagery you can add with the words gusty, torrential, breezy, or windswept in front of your nouns.
Using descriptive words can:
- bring characters to life in a novel or short story
- sell an item in a product advertisement
- convince an audience in a persuasive writing piece
- explain the setting of a news story
- provide instructions for a DIY project
Using illustrative descriptors makes your writing impossible to put down. Whether you're using descriptive words in poetry or informational writing, there are always opportunities to make sentences more vivid.
Describing Our World With Words
When it comes to using descriptive words, variety is key. Go beyond the list of adjectives, adverbs, and participles above to help you set the scene with just the right imagery.
- Appeal to your readers' senses with a list of strong sensory words.
- Use descriptive words for scents to describe pleasant (or unpleasant) smells.
- Describe an aquatic scene with water words for descriptive writing.
- Learn to describe a person’s (or character’s) physical appearance.
- Choose the right descriptive words to describe someone’s personality.
- Paint a delicious picture with descriptive language for food.
Staff Writer
- elementary school
- middle school
- high school
- college
Related Articles
120 Adjectives That Start With “D”
Desperate for delightful adjectives that start with “D”? Or are you looking for more difficult and distasteful words to describe a dire situation? Either way, you’ll find a wealth of “D” adjectives ready for dreamy dates or dastardly deeds.
90 Adjectives That Start With “G”
Good gravy! The letter “G” has great times written all over it. There’s nothing as gratifying as using a “G” adjective, which are words that describe people, places, and objects. With adjectives like gorgeous, gracious, and gluttonous, “G” is just the gift that keeps on giving.
List of Descriptive Adjectives
Developing a full list of descriptive adjectives for the English language would be a formidable task. Why? Because English is a language that welcomes modifiers with open arms. Just to keep it simple, explore some descriptive adjectives that are simple, compound or proper.
List of Descriptive Adjectives: Simple, Compound and Proper
Advertisement
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. Let's look at all three to see how they are different.
- Descriptive adjectives work to provide information about a quality of a noun. In the sentence, "My beautiful friend is a model," the word beautiful is a descriptive adjective.
- Quantitative adjectives provide information about a quantity of a noun. So, if you say, "She has many friends," many is a quantitative adjective.
- Demonstrative adjectives emphasize the importance of the noun and whether it's near or far. In the sentence, "I want that vase," the word that is your demonstrative adjective.
To help you get a clear idea of the largest adjective group, take a closer look at some examples of descriptive adjectives.
An Organized List of Descriptive Adjectives
You can organize a list of descriptive adjectives into three categories to help writers and speakers better manage this large class of words. See a small sample of examples of each of three kinds of adjectives.
Simple Adjectives
Simple adjectives, as their name suggests, are the most basic kind of descriptive adjectives. They function to express quality. These types of adjectives include those for describing feelings and emotions, the taste of something, and appearance. You might also use adjectives to describe sounds and time. Since this list is large, check out a small preview of simple adjectives.
alive | ancient | bumpy |
busy | combative | cotton |
dangerous | dusty | elderly |
expensive | graceful | granite |
handsome | hollow | lazy |
low | massive | melodic |
minuscule | new | octagonal |
oval | petite | puny |
rainy | right | safe |
sane | shrill | shy |
sore | superior | swift |
teak | terrible | tremendous |
ugly | weary | wild |
Advertisement
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 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
A number of adjectives 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. See a few different examples of proper adjectives.
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 |
Printable List of Adjectives
Looking for more descriptive adjectives? Then you might enjoy this printable list of descriptive adjectives for a person.
View & Download PDF
Advertisement
Putting Adjectives in Order
When using multiple descriptive adjectives in a sentence, there is an order in which you should arrange them. Adjectives that describe opinion typically precede adjectives that describe color, size, shape, and more. 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 in Writing and Speech
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 into 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 examples of personality adjectives. It might help bring your characters to life!
Staff Writer
Adjectives characterizing a person - list
Rubric: For every dayHere are collected words (adjectives) that characterize a person (both a man and a woman). Words are arranged in a list, for convenience, divided by letters of the alphabet. This list can be useful to you for compiling a resume, characterization, compiling announcements (for hiring or searching for a person) and simply for describing people (if necessary).
Please note: Not all adjectives that can describe a person are collected here, but only those that can characterize people (that is, there are no such words as “beautiful”, “tall”, “small”, “barrel-shaped”, "shaved", etc. They refer to the description of appearance and are not related to the description of personality, character, behavior).
A
- Adventurized
- Authority
- Aggressive
- adequate
- Azartic
- Neat
- ALCH
- Elogical (illologian - opposite - opposite logic)
- Altruistic (altruistic)
- Alcohol addict
- Immoral
- Ambitious
- Amorphous
- Anecdotal
- Apathetic 0011 Apathetic
- Apolitical
- Ascetic
- Assertive rights, not to depend on external assessments, influences and do it without violating the rights others)
- Asocial
- Autical
- Artistic
- aristocratic
B
- Balled
- Vigilant
- Black
- Perelandic
- Harvested.0012
- Windle
- Nonsense
- Explosive
- Scruffy
- Guilty
- Fitty
- ACTIVITIVE
- Available
- exalted
- exalted
- exalted attitude towards something or someone)
- Strong-willed
- Free
- Free-thinking
- Freedom-loving
- Thievish
- Grouchy
- Receptive
- Enthusiastic
- Impressive
- Hostile (hostile, hostile-cold)
- Harmful
- Omnivorous (here - promiscuous, not the one who eats everything)
- Fixing
- vulgar
- Office
- Outstanding
- Highly moral
- Highly exaggerated highly developed
- High -EVEIDEN0012
- Great
- Trusty
- Hasty
- Lolder -out
- Dominative
- House
- Decent Bulbed
- NEDDICAL (here, DEMODICAL
- DRIMEN ignorant)
- Friendly
- Dirty
- Bad
- Foolish
- Spiritual and moral
- Spiritual
- Mental
- Mentally ill
- 0012
E
- Broken
- Bossy
- Natural
- Echered
- greedy
- Miserable
- hard, reinforced concrete)
- Bile
- Effeminate
- Feminine
- Womanly
- Cute
- Cruel
- Rigid
- Critical
- Painting
- MORY
- Cultural
- LABIL (here is mood)
- Laconic
- Latent Latent
- Light (not for weight. easy "on the rise")
- Gullible
- Frivolous
- Frivolous
- Easily irritable (easily irritated)
- Easily controllable
- Easily vulnerable
- Unseasoned (not about cognac, but about the lack of endurance in a person)
- Unbearable
- Unbearable
- Disharmonious
- Negative (negatively tuned) , thinking)
- Shallow (here is not about the depth of the reservoir, but about the depth of the inner content of a person)
- Non-proud
- Inhospitable
- Illiterate
- Unnecessary
- optional (here is not a loving obligations that does not recognize them, avoiding duties, etc.)
- incorpected
- Fear
- Fisherous
- Direct
- 2 Unsuitable
- NOTSED NOW THE
- NOT Untrue
- Non-idle
- Impractical
- Unpredictable
- Unforeseen
- Inflexible
- Moral
- Cut
O
- Charming
- Obvornoye
- Offective
- Offended (here in the meaning - offended by life, on fate, etc. )
- deceitful
- See Educated
- Sociable
- Objective
- Compulsory
- Gifted
- Possessed (here in the meaning - obsessed with work, work, the devil, etc.)
- Standard
- dull
- Lastly
- Desperate
- Owl
- Oygnidic
- numb, charming
- Eye
- PADKY; ; avid for everything new, etc.)
- Dirty
- Memoryful
- Paradoxical
- Paranoid (here - a paranoid type of personality and as a result - a certain style of thinking, behavior, etc., characteristic of a person of this type)
- Consistent
- Obedient
- Mediocre
- Constant (here in the meaning - constant in his views, principles, attitude, etc.)
- Shabby
- Lost (here in the meaning - lost to society, life, etc.)
- Amusing
- Terrific
- Lustful
- Respectful
- Vulgar
- Vulgar
- Truthful
Truthful20012 - Written
- Generally
- Great
- Admissible
- Disgrasting
- Unpleasant
- Present
- Fresh (here about a person in the significance - boring, without "dys -tied") 12, without "pepper).
- Boring
- Criminal
- Terrible
- Successful
- Fastidious
- Affable
- Silly
- Director
- Rectoline
- Mice
- Scarecrow
- Bulbed
- Punctual
- Empty (empty person, “Pie with nothing”, etc.)
- Emilland
- Putic 9001
- Empty-headed
- Inquisitive
Р
- Submissive
- Indifferent
- Equal in rights
- Equal in rights
- Radical1
- 0012
- wasteful
- Calculated
- Refined
- rational
- reactive (here in the value - high -acting, quick, energetic, etc.)
- Realistic
- Jealous
- Rare
- Rare
- Rare
- Rent -on
- Sharp
- Retrograde
- Decisive
- Risky
- Timid
- Respectable
- Romantic
- Sharp (here in the meaning - much capable of hands, capable of much capable of hands)
- Private (in the sense of ordinary)
C
- Demonial
- Herly Self -sufficient
- Self -sufficient
- Self-forgetting
- Self-proclaimed
- Self-loving
- Self-confident
- Self-confident
- Self-critical
- Self-confident
- Angry
- Compassionate (here - compassionate, compassionate)
- Serious
- Grey-footed (here it means ill-mannered, awkward, unable to behave, unable to behave, not allowed in a decent society, etc. )
- Strong (not necessarily physically strong, for example: a strong-minded person, mentally strong, mentally strong, etc.) .)
- Scaby
- Scandalous
- Skaed
- Bad
- Skeptical
- Small
- constrained (here is clamped, numb, constrained)
- Slippery (here in the meaning is slippery, unreliable, unless. dishonest, ambiguous, obscene, dubious)
- Modest
- Secretive
- Scrupulous
- Poor-minded
- Stingy
- Stingy
- capable (in the meaning-gifted, talented)
- stable (constant, durable, sane, emotionally stable, socially stable, etc.)
- Street
- shy
- STARTICAL
- CESTURE
- Strange
- Passionate Passionate
- Impetuous
- Stress resistant
- Strict
- Obstinate
- Shy
- Subjective
- Superstitious
- Fussy
- vain
- Business
- Crazy
- Happy
- mysterious
- Talented
- solid (here in the meaning - reliable, insistent, disgusting, disgraced, non -imminent man) , narrow-minded, stubborn, etc. )
- Creative
- Dark (here - dense, uneducated, caveman)
- Temperamental
- Patient
- Fulb
- Fatovskaya
- feminine
- FISH
- Philosophical (for example: Philosophical, Philosophical, Juits, etc.)
- Flematic
- Frivolny (for example:: for example:: Fundamental
Х
- Charismatic
- Boastful
- Crappy
- Cunning
- Cunning
- Cunning ass
- Cunning
- Cold-blooded
- Hospitable
- Choleric (having a choleric temperament, not the one who is sick with cholera)
- Cold (this is not about temperature, but about mental Colds)
- Holey
- Commercial
- Good
- Brave
- Hooligan
- Khrenovy
9000
- Purposeful
- CINICIAL
- CEAL0012
- tongued
- bright
- ardent (about any inclinations of a person. For example: an ardent defender of children, an ardent reformer, an ardent loafer and a lazy person, an ardent hater of fools)
- Furious
- Clairvoyant
Note:
- All of the above words (adjectives) can describe any person - a man, a woman, a teenager, and in many cases a child. To do this, you just need to change the ending of the desired word.
- Also, remember: according to the rules of the Russian language, some of the above words can be both an adjective and a participle (depending on the context in which the word is used).
- This list does not include obscene words and words that are specific terms used by narrow specialists for professional purposes.
Similar items
Children's Descriptive Adjective List
Children's Descriptive Adjective List can help students understand this part of speech and improve their writing. Describing words for children should focus on adjectives that children have heard or words that are easy for them to pronounce and spell.
What are descriptive adjectives and words?
Words that describe people, places, and things, or nouns, are called adjectives. You can remember this by thinking, "the adjective adds something."
- The descriptive adjective is one of the three main types of adjectives.
- Descriptive adjectives or descriptive words give detailed information about a subject.
- Descriptive adjectives can help you understand what something looks like, how many it is, what size it is, or what it's made of.
- Homeschooling Myths
- What is School Dropout
- List of Adjectives
Examples of Descriptive Adjectives for Children
Having an extensive list of descriptive adjectives handy can help children improve their vocabulary. You can look at the list of adjectives to see how some describe the words and how others tell you different details about the noun.
dirty truth or dare questions for teenagers
Appearance adjectives
If you need an adjective to describe a child or adult, you can use words that describe in detail their appearance, size, or age. Whenever possible, try to use positive words that describe the person.
Looks | Size | Age |
---|---|---|
Zany |
Adjectives to describe emotions and feelings
Children have a lot of emotions and they often have very big feelings. Different emotion words can help you express exactly how you feel.
Angry | Bored | Content | Capricted |
Bannicated | uped | exhausted | Issued Printable Adjective List Helpful Descriptive Adjective TipsLearning adjectives can be challenging for kids, but it can also be a lot of fun. Look for creative ways to share adjective examples to make the most of these grammar lessons.
Describe in detailWriting in elementary school is important because this is the time when children really develop their own vocabulary and writing style. |