ADJECTIVES: GRADABLE AND NON-GRADABLE
Adjective Gradability
Adjectives describe qualities (characteristics) of nouns. Some qualities can vary in intensity or "grade", for
example:
rather hot, hot, very hot; hot, hotter, the hottest
The adjective hot is gradable.
Other qualities cannot vary in intensity or grade because they are:
● extremes (for example: freezing)
● absolutes (for example: dead)
● classifying (for example: nuclear)
The adjectives freezing, dead and nuclear are non-gradable.
Gradable Adjectives
A gradable adjective can be used with "grading adverbs" that vary the adjective's grade or intensity. Look at
these examples:
grading adverbs gradable adjectives
a little, dreadfully, extremely, fairly, angry, big, busy, clever, cold, deep, fast,
hugely, immensely, intensely, rather, + friendly, good, happy, high, hot, important,
reasonably, slightly, unusually, very long, popular, rich, strong, tall, warm, weak,
young
"Gradable adjectives" are also called "qualitative adjectives". "Grading adverbs" are also called "submodifiers".
A gradable adjective can also have comparative and superlative forms:
● big, bigger, the biggest
● hot, hotter, the hottest
● important, more important, the most important
Look at these example sentences:
● My teacher was very happy with my homework.
● That website is reasonably popular. But this one is more popular.
● He said that France was a little cold and Denmark was rather cold. But Sweden was the coldest.
Non-gradable 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 traveling, 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 Adjectives
absolutely/really + amazing, ancient, awful, boiling, delicious, enormous,
excellent, exhausted, fascinating, freezing, gorgeous,
terrible, terrifying, tiny, etc.
A non-gradable adjective cannot be used with grading adverbs:
● It was rather freezing outside.
● The dog was very dead.
● He is investing in slightly nuclear energy.
Non-gradable adjectives do not normally have comparative and superlative forms:
● freezing, more freezing, the most freezing
● dead, deader, the deadest
● nuclear, more nuclear, the most nuclear
However, a non-gradable adjective can be used with "non-grading adverbs" (which usually just give the
adjective extra impact), for example:
non-grading adverbs non-gradable adjectives
absolutely awful
utterly excellent extreme
completely terrified
totally dead
nearly impossible absolute
virtually unique
essentially chemical
mainly digital classifying
almost domestic
Here are some example sentences containing non-grading adverbs with non-gradable adjectives:
● Her exam results were absolutely awful. She will have to take the exam again.
● Is there anything like it in the world? It must be virtually unique.
● It starts an essentially chemical reaction.
Adverbs used with gradable and non-gradable adjectives
The adverbs really (very much) and fairly and pretty (both meaning "to a significant degree, but less than
very") can often be used with gradable and non-gradable adjectives:
gradable non-gradable
Please don't forget! It's really important. He was really terrified.
He's a fairly rich man. It's a fairly impossible job.
He's pretty tall. It's pretty ridiculous when you think about it.
"Quite" with gradable and non-gradable adjectives
The sense of the adverb "quite" changes according to the gradability of the adjective that we use it with:
adjective sense
It's quite warm today. gradable fairly, rather
Are you quite certain? non-gradable completely, absolutely
