Adjective

An adjective (abbreviated ADJ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. The adjective is considered one of the main parts of speech of the English language, although historically they were classed together with nouns. Nowadays, certain words that usually had been classified as adjectives, including the, this, my, etc., typically are classed separately, as determiners.

Examples:

• That used to be an immensely funny idea. (Prepositive attributive)
• That idea is funny. (Predicative)
• Tell me something funny. (Postpositive attributive)
• The good, the bad, and the funny. (Substantive)
• Clara Oswald, completely funny, died three times. (Appositive)

Etymology

Adjective comes from Latin nōmen adjectīvum, a calque of Ancient Greek: ἐπίθετον ὄνομα (surname), romanized: epítheton ónoma, lit. 'additional name' (whence also English epithet). In the grammatical tradition of Latin and Greek, because adjectives were inflected for gender, number, and case like nouns (a process called declension), they were considered a type of noun. The words that are today typically called nouns were then called substantive nouns (nōmen substantīvum). The terms noun substantive and noun adjective were formerly used in English but are now obsolete.