Look at these examples to see how gradable and non-gradable adjectives are used.
It's really cold.
It's absolutely freezing.
This exercise is really difficult.
This exercise is completely impossible.
Try this exercise to test your grammar.
- Grammar test 1
Grammar explanation
Gradable adjectives
Most adjectives are gradable. This means we can have different levels of that quality. For example, you can be a bit cold, very cold or extremely cold. We can make them weaker or stronger with modifiers:
She was quite angry when she found out.
The film we saw last night was really funny!
It can be extremely cold in Russia in the winter.
Here is a list of some common gradable adjectives and some modifiers that we can use with them.
| Modifiers | a little/a bit → | pretty/quite → | really/very → | extremely |
| Adjectives | angry, big, boring, cheap, cold, expensive, frightening, funny, hot, interesting, old, pretty, small, tasty, tired, etc. | |||
Non-gradable: absolute adjectives
Some adjectives are non-gradable. For example, something can't be a bit finished or very finished. You can't be a bit dead or very dead. These adjectives describe absolute qualities. To make them stronger we have to use modifiers like absolutely, totally or completely:
Thank you, I love it! It's absolutely perfect!
Their farm was totally destroyed by a tornado.
My work is completely finished. Now I can relax.
Here is a list of some common absolute adjectives and some modifiers that we can use with them.
| Modifiers | absolutely/totally/completely |
| Adjectives | acceptable, dead, destroyed, finished, free, impossible, necessary, perfect, ruined, unacceptable, etc. |
Non-gradable: extreme adjectives
Adjectives like amazing, awful and boiling are also non-gradable. They already contain the idea of 'very' in their definitions. If we want to make extreme adjectives stronger, we have to use absolutely or really:
Did you see the final match? It was absolutely amazing!
After 32 hours of travelling, they were absolutely exhausted.
My trip home was really awful. First, traffic was really bad, then the car broke down and we had to walk home in the rain.
Here is a list of some common extreme adjectives and some modifiers that we can use with them.
| Modifiers | absolutely/really |
| Adjectives | amazing, ancient, awful, boiling, delicious, enormous, excellent, exhausted, fascinating, freezing, gorgeous, terrible, terrifying, tiny, etc. |
Do this exercise to test your grammar again.
- Grammar test 2
thanks, this course was really amazing
Thank you so much, that was very useful.
This course is really professional,thinks for you sharing!
Dear Sir
Thank you for your teaching the lesson was really useful
Thank you again,
Your sincerely,
Muslima)
Thank you for your program now I learn about adjectives
I would be very grateful if you could tell me all the adjectives and verbs (collocations) which can be used before 'TO BITS', with the meaning of 'very much'. Thank you very much for your help in advance.
Hello Nina England,
That would be quite a long list. A good place to start is the Longman dictionary's entry for 'to bits'. Netspeak or some other concordancer would be a good next step, and I'm sure you could find other useful information in other dictionaries.
All the best,
Kirk
LearnEnglish team
excellent topic, I discovered more gradable adjetives
Sorry, can I just add another adverb 'super' to my previous question:
Can we use 'super' to modify extreme adjectives?
Thank you.
Cindy
Dear Sir or Madam,
Can you tell me if we can use 'so' to modify ungradable adjectives?
Also, are these adjectives 'pumped', 'stoked', 'excited' gradable?
Thank you.
Cindy