Using 'enough'

Do you know how to use the word enough? Test what you know with interactive exercises and read the explanation to help you.

Look at these examples to see how enough is used.

She's not old enough to walk yet.
We are not acting fast enough to stop climate change.
I don't read enough.
Is there enough coffee for everyone?
We've had enough of their lies.

Try this exercise to test your grammar.

Grammar test 1: 'enough': Grammar test 1

Read the explanation to learn more.

Grammar explanation

enough means 'as much as necessary'. It can be used with an adjective, an adverb, a verb or a noun. It can also act as a pronoun.

With adjectives and adverbs

enough comes after adjectives and adverbs.

I'm not tall enough to reach the top shelf.
Your marks are good enough to study engineering at university.
I couldn't write quickly enough and I ran out of time.
I've helped at conferences often enough to know what can go wrong.

With verbs

enough comes after verbs.

I make sure I drink enough during the day.
I don't read enough but I'm going to start downloading books to my phone.

With nouns

enough comes before nouns.

There isn't enough bread to make sandwiches.
Have you got enough money?

As a pronoun

enough can also be used without a noun.

I'll get some more chairs. There aren't enough.
A: Do you want more coffee? B: No, I've had enough, thanks.

We know what the noun is because of the context.

With an adjective and a noun

When enough is used with an adjective and a noun, two positions are possible but the meaning changes.

We haven't got big enough envelopes.
We haven't got enough big envelopes.

When enough is after the adjective (big enough envelopes), it describes the adjective – the envelopes are too small. When enough is before the adjective (enough big envelopes), it describes the noun phrase – we have some big envelopes, but we need more.

enough of

We normally only use enough of when it is followed by a determiner or a pronoun (a/an/the, this/that, my/your/his, you/them, etc.).

There isn't enough of that bread to make sandwiches for everyone.
I've seen enough of his work to be able to recommend him.
There's enough of us to make a difference.

Do this exercise to test your grammar again.

Grammar test 2: 'enough': Grammar test 2

Try another grammar lesson

Language level

B2 Upper intermediate

For the first time I found the lesson quite easy. The use of enough is enough similar to Italian :)

The phrase "enough" is used in various contexts to express adequacy, sufficiency, or the point at which something is considered satisfactory. Here are a few common uses:

Quantity or Amount:
- "We have enough food for everyone." (sufficient quantity)
- "That's enough water for now." (sufficient amount)
Extent or Degree:
- "She is strong enough to lift it." (sufficient strength)
- "It's warm enough to go outside without a jacket." (sufficient warmth)
Limit or Tolerance:
- "Enough is enough!" (indicating that a limit has been reached)
- "I've had enough of this noise!" (expressing that one can no longer tolerate something)
As an Adjective or Adverb:
- "He’s rich enough to buy the car." (adjective indicating sufficiency in wealth)
- "She didn’t run fast enough." (adverb indicating the degree of speed)
As a Noun:
- "I’ve had enough." (referring to the state of being sufficient or satisfactory)

"Enough" is versatile and its meaning is often determined by the context in which it is used.

The use of "enough to" in the following excerpt from the Cambridge dictionary is not explained in this grammar section:
"In the final straight Meyers stumbled, and although he didn't fall it was enough to lose him first place."

What would make more sense to me is, for example, "it was enough to make him lose first place", but the structure featured above sounds weird to me.

Hi yalvar,

The structure in that example is: lose + [somebody] + [something]. Here are some more examples: My mistakes in the interview lost me the job. The government's failed policy lost them public support. The captain's red card lost his team the championship. It's the final structure listed under meaning 4 here, from the Longman Dictionary.

That isn't the only possible structure after "lose". Your sentence is also grammatical!

Jonathan

LearnEnglish team

It was useful enough!
many thanks 😊

Tello, this test went very good. It is almost too easy.

This is tho easy for me

Thank you very much for your efforts

why there is no sheets to download

Hi ahmad alsaleh,

I'm afraid we don't have any worksheets for our Grammar section pages right now. We are just a small team and we are working on other parts of the site at the moment. But we do have worksheets for pages in our Skills, Business English and General English sections, so feel free to have a look at those.

Best wishes,