Adjectives — descriptive words that modify nouns — often come under fire for their cluttering quality, but often it’s quality, not quantity, that is the issue. Plenty of tired adjectives are available to spoil a good sentence, but when you find just the right word for the job, enrichment ensues. Practice precision when you select words. Here’s a list of adjectives:
- Adamant: unyielding; a very hard substance
- Adroit: clever, resourceful
- Amatory: sexual
- Animistic: quality of recurrence or reversion to earlier form
- Antic: clownish, frolicsome
- Arcadian: serene
- Baleful: deadly, foreboding
- Bellicose: quarrelsome (its synonym belligerent can also be a noun)
- Bilious: unpleasant, peevish
- Boorish: crude, insensitive
- Calamitous: disastrous
- Caustic: corrosive, sarcastic; a corrosive substance
- Cerulean: sky blue
- Comely: attractive
- Concomitant: accompanying
- Contumacious: rebellious
- Corpulent: obese
- Crapulous: immoderate in appetite
- Defamatory: maliciously misrepresenting
- Didactic: conveying information or moral instruction
- Dilatory: causing delay, tardy
- Dowdy: shabby, old-fashioned; an unkempt woman
- Efficacious: producing a desired effect
- Effulgent: brilliantly radiant
- Egregious: conspicuous, flagrant
- Endemic: prevalent, native, peculiar to an area
- Equanimous: even, balanced
- Execrable: wretched, detestable
- Fastidious: meticulous, overly delicate
- Feckless: weak, irresponsible
- Fecund: prolific, inventive
- Friable: brittle
- Fulsome: abundant, overdone, effusive
- Garrulous: wordy, talkative
- Guileless: naive
- Gustatory: having to do with taste or eating
- Heuristic: learning through trial-and-error or problem solving
- Histrionic: affected, theatrical
- Hubristic: proud, excessively self-confident
- Incendiary: inflammatory, spontaneously combustible, hot
- Insidious: subtle, seductive, treacherous
- Insolent: impudent, contemptuous
- Intransigent: uncompromising
- Inveterate: habitual, persistent
- Invidious: resentful, envious, obnoxious
- Irksome: annoying
- Jejune: dull, puerile
- Jocular: jesting, playful
- Judicious: discreet
- Lachrymose: tearful
- Limpid: simple, transparent, serene
- Loquacious: talkative
- Luminous: clear, shining
- Mannered: artificial, stilted
- Mendacious: deceptive
- Meretricious: whorish, superficially appealing, pretentious
- Minatory: menacing
- Mordant: biting, incisive, pungent
- Munificent: lavish, generous
- Nefarious: wicked
- Noxious: harmful, corrupting
- Obtuse: blunt, stupid
- Parsimonious: frugal, restrained
- Pendulous: suspended, indecisive
- Pernicious: injurious, deadly
- Pervasive: widespread
- Petulant: rude, ill humored
- Platitudinous: resembling or full of dull or banal comments
- Precipitate: steep, speedy
- Propitious: auspicious, advantageous, benevolent
- Puckish: impish
- Querulous: cranky, whining
- Quiescent: inactive, untroublesome
- Rebarbative: irritating, repellent
- Recalcitant: resistant, obstinate
- Redolent: aromatic, evocative
- Rhadamanthine: harshly strict
- Risible: laughable
- Ruminative: contemplative
- Sagacious: wise, discerning
- Salubrious: healthful
- Sartorial: relating to attire, especially tailored fashions
- Sclerotic: hardening
- Serpentine: snake-like, winding, tempting or wily
- Spasmodic: having to do with or resembling a spasm, excitable, intermittent
- Strident: harsh, discordant; obtrusively loud
- Taciturn: closemouthed, reticent
- Tenacious: persistent, cohesive,
- Tremulous: nervous, trembling, timid, sensitive
- Trenchant: sharp, penetrating, distinct
- Turbulent: restless, tempestuous
- Turgid: swollen, pompous
- Ubiquitous: pervasive, widespread
- Uxorious: inordinately affectionate or compliant with a wife
- Verdant: green, unripe
- Voluble: glib, given to speaking
- Voracious: ravenous, insatiable
- Wheedling: flattering
- Withering: devastating
- Zealous: eager, devoted
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