What is Description?
Descriptions add detail to what we read and help the reader "see" what the writer is thinking. When we know how different descriptive words are used, we can better understand their meaning and build our vocabulary. In this article, you will read about descriptions and adjectives. An adjective is a word that describes a noun (a person, a place, or a thing). Read this article for an understanding of how adjectives give us information about something so we can better understand it.
| The goal of description is to convey a person, place or thing in such a way that a picture is formed in the reader's mind. Capturing an event through descriptive language involves paying close attention to details by using all of your five senses (touch, sight, smell, taste, and sound). These senses are important to descriptive writing because they help the reader understand what the author is trying to say. As a descriptive writer, the more vividly you are able to describe what you have sensed, the more engaged audience will be with your text. |
Grammatically speaking, descriptive language is the use of nouns and adjectives in order to most specifically describe the experiences of a particular sense. By making the language you use more powerful, you may use description in order to allow your reader to truly sense what you are writing about. To this end, one of description's main goals is making the abstract seem more concrete.
Specific descriptive language has uses outside of describing sensory experience. For example, the abstract idea of freedom may help many evoke different definitions and feelings for different readers, but when the idea of freedom is described to slaves through the Emancipation Proclamation, it becomes much more concrete and more uniform among readers. Description is used by writers in order to encourage their audiences to have a more specific reading of a text.
Functions of Adjectives
An adjective modifies a noun; that is, it provides more detail about a noun. This can be anything from color to size to temperature to personality. Adjectives usually occur just before the nouns they modify. In the following examples, adjectives are in bold, while the nouns they modify are in italics (the big bear):
- The generator is used to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy.
- The steel pipes contain a protective sacrificial anode and are surrounded by packing material.
Adjectives can also follow a linking verb. In these instances, adjectives can modify pronouns as well. In the following examples, adjectives are still bold, while the linking verb is in italics this time (the sun is yellow):
- The schoolhouse was red.
- I looked good today.
- She was funny.
Numbers can also be adjectives in some cases. When you say "Seven is my lucky number", seven is a noun, but when you say "There are seven cats in this painting", seven is an adjective because it is modifying the noun cats.
Below, you'll find an image illustrating the royal order of adjectives. Again, native English speakers follow the order, but we don't always know WHY. Think about it. Why would we automatically write four gorgeous, long-stemmed, red, silk roses rather than four silk, long stemmed, gorgeous, red roses? What drives the order in our description? The first example leads us down a logical path; the second example doesn't let us know which details are most important.
Types of Adjectives
Comparatives and superlatives are types of adjectives, but one (comparatives) provides a relative distinction while the other (superlatives) signifies the most extreme.
Comparative adjectives often end in -er, and superlative adjectives often end in -est.
| Comparative: My World of Warcraft fighter is tougher than your character. Superlative: My World of Warcraft fighter is the toughest character ever. |
The Royal Order of Adjectives
| Determiner | Observation | Physical Description | Origin | Material | Qualifier | Noun | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Size | Shape | Age | Color | ||||||
| a | beautiful | old | Italian | touring | car | ||||
| an | expensive | antique | silver | mirror | |||||
| four | gorgeous | stemmed | red | silk | roses | ||||
| her | short | black | hair | ||||||
| our | big | old | English | sheepdog | |||||
| those | square | wooden | hat | boxes | |||||
| that | dilapidated | little | hunting | cabin | |||||
| several | giant | young | American | basketball | players | ||||
| some | delicious | Chinese | food | ||||||
a beautiful old Italian touring car
Determiner
Observation
Physical Description
Size
Shape
Age
Color
Origin
Material
Qualifier
Noun
four gorgeous stemmed red silk roses
Determiner
Observation
Physical Description
Size
Shape
Age
Color
Origin
Material
Qualifier
Noun
that dilapidated little hunting cabin
Determiner
Observation
Physical Description
Size
Shape
Age
Color
Origin
Material
Qualifier
Noun
Comparable Adjectives
Some adjectives are comparable. For example, a person may be polite, but another person may be more polite, and a third person may be the most polite of the three. The word more here modifies the adjective polite to indicate a comparison is being made (a comparative), and most modifies the adjective to indicate an absolute comparison (a superlative).
There is another way to compare adjectives in English. Many adjectives can take the suffixes –er and –est (sometimes requiring additional letters before the suffix; see forms for far below) to indicate the comparative and superlative forms, respectively:
great, greater, greatest
deep , deeper, deepest
far,
farther, farthest
Some adjectives are irregular in this sense:
good, better, best
bad , worse, worst
little, less,
least
Another way to convey comparison is by incorporating the words more and most. There is no simple rule to decide which means is correct for any given adjective, however. The general tendency is for shorter adjectives to take the suffixes, while longer adjectives do not. Sometimes, the sound of the word is the deciding factor.
more beautiful not beautifuller
more pretentious not pretentiouser
This video will help you better understand comparative adjectives.
Source: Lumen Learning, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/styleguide/chapter/functions-of-adjectives/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Source: Excelsior Online Writing Lab, https://owl.excelsior.edu/grammar-essentials/parts-of-speech/adjectives/order-of-adjectives This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Source: Wikibooks, https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Rhetoric_and_Composition/Description
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
Source: ITTT, https://youtu.be/HD64sL5fn8I This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.